Bastoni: ‘Millimetre offside makes the difference’ and frustrated with Club World Cup | OneFootball

Alessandro Bastoni explains why a millimetre offside ‘makes the difference,’ the sacrifices made by players, his experience being bullied by teammates, and his irritation with the Club World Cup format.

The centre-back sat down with Alessandro Catellan for the Supernova podcast and you can read the rest of his comments here.

Much is said about the changes to modern football, with an increasingly packed fixture list, changing formats in major tournaments and the introduction of VAR.

Unusually, Bastoni stands against the tide of complaints about the tiny margins provided by Semi-Automatic Offside Technology (SAOT), which has only now been introduced to the Premier League after two years in Serie A.

“I like the way offside works now and it is the only thing I absolutely would not change,” said Bastoni.

“If a striker gets to the ball a centimetre before me, that makes the difference. If you are offside, then you are offside. In our sport, a hundredth of a second can change a game. If you are a millimetre in front of me, then it is not a fair goal.

“Now everyone is so well-drilled, they study their opponents carefully and prepare tactically, so every millimetre makes the difference.”

When it comes to the ever-expanding fixture list, the feelings are mixed for the Inter and Italy defender.

“People think sacrifice is just getting up at 6am to work on a building site, but players make other types of sacrifices. Nobody can give us back the time that we lost. We play so often that we’re always away from our families and you can never get that back. My daughter will be three years old soon, I see her growing up via the videos that my wife sends me.”

Bastoni sees good and bad in new formats

MILAN, ITALY – FEBRUARY 28: Alessandro Bastoni of FC Internazionale celebrates after the Serie A TIM match between FC Internazionale and Atalanta BC Serie A TIM at Stadio Giuseppe Meazza on February 28, 2024 in Milan, Italy. (Photo by Marco Luzzani/Getty Images)

Inter are in the Champions League quarter-final against Bayern Munich, the Coppa Italia semi-final with Milan, and still at the top of Serie A.

This is the first season since the Champions League shifted to the new format playing against eight different opponents in the opening phase, with all the results going into a single league table.

“At the start, I would’ve said I didn’t like this format, but now I do. Every game is important, we’ve seen big clubs fail to finish in the top eight and have to go through the play-offs,” replied Bastoni.

“It’s also good to face strong opponents from the very start, it is really motivating. The negative side of that is there are extra games in an already packed calendar. In the NBA, they play what feels like 100,000 games, but they also stop from June to October. We are playing in the Club World Cup until mid-July and two weeks later go into pre-season training.”

The Club World Cup is also a new, expanded format, and one that seems to be appreciated far more for its business opportunities than the sporting merit or entertainment factor.

“It has never been done before, so we’ll see how it goes, but it’s in June, we’ll be exhausted after a long season, it will be played at midday in New York in July to fit the European television schedules, so sure, great,” he laughed bitterly.

At least there are some areas where Bastoni feels that football has improved, revealing some of the experiences he had in the Atalanta youth academy.

“I don’t see the same level of bullying, which was really unjust and unseemly. At Atalanta, I dealt with Stendardo, Masiello and Zukanovic, people who went a bit overboard. I nutmegged one of them in training once and I practically had to leave to save my life!

“In all seriousness, it’s not a good attitude to have. If a youth team player nutmegs me, I give him credit for that. I don’t need to beat him up over it. That’s not fair.”