The paradox of Italian football has never been so obvious. The country continues to form certain nuggets who quickly shine in youth teams, but Serie A stubbornly refuses to make room for them. Coach Gennaro Gattuso, like other historical figures, regularly warns of this structural inertia which condemns young talents to the shadows. The results of the youth selections, however, prove that training is not the problem: the U17s reached the semi-finals of the World Cup in Qatar a few days ago, and all the national categories are thriving. But the exploitation of this breeding ground is catastrophic. Serie A is now the second worst championship in the world in terms of playing time given to under-21s, behind the United Arab Emirates and just ahead of Saudi Arabia. The most worrying symptom is found even in the youth divisions: the Primavera of Lecce, Italian champions in 2023, made headlines, because they fielded an 11 entirely composed of foreign players. Of the 26 registered players, only 7 have Italian nationality. An absolute anomaly which illustrates the structural problem. Even in modest clubs, young Italians no longer play… even in Primavera.
Faced with this drift, the FIGC is trying to react by modifying the rules: investments for Italian players under the age of 23 will no longer be counted in the calculation of expanded labor costs. The objective is clear: to make youth a lever, not a burden. In Serie B and C, the logic will be similar with a limit set at under 21 years old and the risk of a transfer freeze for clubs exceeding the threshold. A necessary revolution to prevent an entire generation from continuing to go into exile before even having a chance. Faced with the stagnation of Serie A, certain players already established or in the midst of a sporting explosion did not hesitate to cross the Channel to settle in the Premier League, where their role has become essential. Despite his extra-sporting setbacks, Sandro Tonali remains a key player for Newcastle when he is available, while Federico Chiesa, who left to seek a more dynamic and direct environment in England, has found a volume of play and a particular responsibility at Liverpool, which Juventus no longer offered him. Riccardo Calafiori has become one of the most exciting defenders in the English championship thanks to his elegance, versatility and tactical maturity, a profile that Italy struggles to promote internally. Alongside them, Guglielmo Vicario, who has become an indisputable starter at Tottenham, also symbolizes this qualitative flight. And if Gianluigi Donnarumma moved to England rather than to Serie A, his status remains symptomatic… Italian talents at the peak of their careers flourish more outside their country than at home. A dynamic which strengthens the Nazionale, but which weakens Serie A, incapable of retaining or maximizing its own strengths and which therefore creates a real gulf in level in the national selection.
The impossible becomes possible
Beyond the stars, the exodus now affects younger profiles, sometimes very little known to the general European public. Nicolò Savona perfectly embodies this new generation which chooses the Premier League very early on to accelerate its development. A modern, dynamic right-back who receives in England what he might never have had in Serie A, namely time, confidence and a clear progression plan at Nottingham Forest. With 7 appearances and 2 goals scored in the league, the native of Aosta scores a lot of points in Sean Dyche’s rotation. Trained at Fiorentina but really launched by Brentford, Michael Kayode adds power and verticality to a right-back position where Italy sorely lacks depth. As for Caleb Okoli, who left for the Championship at Leicester, he demonstrates week after week that a young Italian defender can become a pillar of an English team even in a rough and demanding context. These trajectories illustrate a trend. When the Italian clubs hesitate, the English clubs do not wait. They identify, recruit, support and reap the benefits of raw talent that Serie A lets slip away.
Among those who best embody this early migration, Wilfried Gnonto remains the textbook case. Launched at a very young age in Switzerland then became a Leeds sensation before even having his chance in Serie A, his career is one of the most striking proof of the structural backwardness of Italian football. Another great defensive hope of Hellas Verona, Diego Coppola, also chose last summer to join England to reach a milestone that he was not guaranteed to reach by remaining in an unstable Serie A project. Without forgetting the case of Giovanni Leoni, transferred to Liverpool, who probably represents the most contemporary version of the phenomenon, namely an elegant, very young central defender, recruited even before having really settled permanently as a professional in Parma. If he is currently injured and has not yet been able to appear, the confidence placed in him by a world elite club confirms a certainty. England has decided to bet massively on Italian youth, aware of a potential that Italy no longer knows how to secure. In this Savona-Coppola-Leoni triangle, one can read the same truth: the Premier League has become a springboard, perhaps even a refuge, for talents who prefer to export themselves rather than wait for hypothetical playing time in their own championship.
