Italy pushing youth reform as ailing football nation eyes World Cup return

As Italian football fans worry that their national team might miss out on a third straight World Cup in Tuesday's play-off decider with Bosnia and Herzegovina, moves are afoot to take the Azzurri back to the top.

Announced earlier this month, the Italian Football Federation (FIGC) has launched a project for youth football in a country which once produced some of the world's very best players but hasn't done so for a generation.

The team that will line-up in Zenica lacks the star power of years gone by, such as Alessandro Del Piero, Andrea Pirlo, Fabio Cannavaro or Francesco Totti who won Italy the World Cup in 2006.

The feeling of being left by the wayside was exacerbated by dreadful performances on the continent this season by Italy's top clubs and the continuation of a golden age for the country in a host of other sports.

On Sunday tennis star Jannik Sinner cruised to victory at the Miami Masters, yet another win for the four-time Grand Slam champion who at the age of 24 is the dominant force in men's tennis alongside Spanish rival Carlos Alcaraz.

Kimi Antonelli and Marco Bezzecchi lead the Formula One and MotoGP championships, while alpine skier Federica Brignone's double gold at the Winter Olympics the highlight of a record-breaking medal haul of 30.

Even the rugby union team is more a source of national pride than the footballers thanks to a historic win over England in the Six Nations.

So the FIGC, after years of criticism from media and fans alike, has decided for grassroots reform and deeper involvement in youth football across the country.

"Everyone who's played for the national team started out in neighbourhood clubs. That means that every coach in charge of these kids has to be trained," former Italy midfielder Simone Perrotta tells AFP.

Now 48 years old, Perotta, who spent the majority of his club career at Roma, played alongside Del Piero and Totti in that talent-packed Italy team two decades ago.

- Football culture -

Alongside another World Cup winner in Gianluca Zambrotta, Perrotta now reports to the FIGC's new head of development Maurizio Viscidi, the long-time head of the national youth team set-up who now oversees every aspect of youth football.

The FIGC wants to harmonise as much as possible training across a vast number of clubs which coach around 700,000 kids aged between five and 15, with the aim of teaching coaches  to prioritise young players developing individual skills so that a new generation of stars can come through.

"There isn't a shared methodology that says 'let's try to develop this way of playing football'," says Perotta, who added that he believes there has been an "impoverishment" of technical ability among Italian footballers.

The project provides free online courses for coaches while small groups of FIGC training staff based around the country will visit youth football clubs every fortnight, with Perrotta saying that the idea is "to get the federation inside the clubs".

The experimental phase will be rolled out, Perrotta hopes, by this October  and will be centred on the 162 clubs in Serie D, Italy's regional fourth tier and the highest level of amateur football in the country.

One of the frequent talking points in Italy is that youngsters no longer play football unaccompanied in the streets as Perrotta says he did as a child, while the cost of sending children to football clubs is a barrier to kids from poorer backgrounds.

The FIGC is aiming to increase base participation by working with local councils to try and create more spaces where young people can play without having to pay.

"We want to work with institutions here to help increase the number of hours kids play because one of the things we've noticed is the difference between here and other countries in how much they train and how much contact they have with the ball," says Perrotta.

"It's systemic. It can't just be the federation's project, it can't just be down to us."

td/pb