Why Italy’s appointment of Rino Gattuso is an exercise in superficiality | OneFootball

Italy are set to appoint Rino Gattuso as manager. While the appointment has attracted some global attention of Ringhio’s name,  it doesn’t make too much sense for the country.

The famous assocation between Gattuso and him giving players a kick up their backsides is always lingering around and he has lived upto that disciplinarian tag at his previous clubs. But Italy’s problems are larger and the appointment of someone like the ex-midfielder is only a temporary way of calming things down and giving a false sense of security.

As of now, Italian football is stuck between two identities and the national team’s struggles show that. They won the Euros in 2021 through a very flexible and Italian approach under Roberto Mancini. It was clear that the title win was a one-off and nothing long-term was being built at the FIGC. Then, they tried to modernise under Luciano Spalletti, who had used a very modern and relationist approach at Napoli, while also overperforming at Inter.

It became clear that Italian football isn’t quite ready for that transition due to issues at the very bottom of their game. Academies are used as means to earn money for clubs that are barely financially proficient and talents are sent across to odd, lower clubs, thus ruining any ideas around youth development.

Even clubs that have a supposedly solid academy structure – those like Juventus, have started to loan out or sell their best NextGen talents because of their struggles around finances. That, in a nutshell, is Italian football and it has made the entire structure lack an identity on the pitch. Those players can stay at more reliable academy structures, improve as players and thereby contribute towards clubs having an identity which makes them stand out.

A look around the European football countries says everything. France won the World Cup at a point when their pool of talent was awash with incredible talent and they had a manager in Didier Deschamps who was more about using the strengths of players instead of imposing external ideas. Germany did the opposite. They tapped into the particular playing style which was prevalent across many clubs in the Bundesliga and won the World Cup under a manager who knew how to use a similar setup at international level. Spain did the same in their golden era.

In Italy, there is a disconnect. There are ideological differences across the board. There is a failure to embrace their age-old identity in a rush to modernise. They want to acquire a new identity too, but there is little at the grassroots to support those ideas. There is a lack of financial resource in the Italian game to sustain the development of players too and that will only change through major changes in how Calcio operates.

The Gattuso move may or may not work out, even if there is clear evidence to suggest that it will not. The real issues will float about like they did, regardless. He is just one way for the FIGC to bring in a big name that attracts attention and hides the real problems that the Azzurri are facing.

Kaustubh Pandey I GIFN