More plausible reasons for the decline of Italian soccer (pay attention, Arrigo Sacchi)
So an old man has said a silly, abhorrent thing. This time, though, that old man is a famous soccer manager. Arrigo Sacchi, 68, who managed AC Milan to back-to-back Champions League titles in 1989 and 1990 and brought Italy to the 1994 World Cup final, where it lost on penalties, and who is considered a tactical mastermind, stands accused of making racist comments during an awards ceremony.
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In attempting to explain some perceived decline of Italian youth soccer, he pointed to "too many blacks" and "too many foreigners" in Italy's youth ranks. He'd seen a game in which a team fielded four "colored players." This worried him.
"Italy now has no dignity or pride, because we have too many foreigners playing in the under-20 leagues," he said, according to La Gazzetto dello Sport. "In our youth sectors there are too many blacks."
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He then made a strange conclusion that this lay at the root of a loss of national identity. That, in turn, was to blame for whatever problems afflict Italian soccer, or so he seemed to reason.
When the old man was confronted with the silly, abhorrent thing he had said he insisted that he's "certainly not racist" because he had once bought and played a black player, Frank Rijkaard.
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OK, then.
A few things we'd like to point out to Arrigo Sacchi:
• While Italy crashed out of the last two World Cups in the group stage, it won the 2006 World Cup and was a runner-up at Euro 2012. It came third at the 2013 Confederations Cup. So the senior Italian national team – fed by those youth ranks – is hardly suffering from a lack of dignity or pride. Or indeed identity.
• Some of the world's better national teams are the most multicultural. Germany and Belgium's teams are melting pots. So is Brazil's. So is the Dutch. And the French. And Colombia's. And Switzerland's. And England's. And the USA's. And many, many more.
• Countries that have been slow to adapt to the demographic changes in its population have invariably seen their national team programs suffer.
• What might actually be affecting the youth setup of Italy's national teams – the under-20 team has failed to reach the 2011, 2013 and 2015 under-20 World Cups and the under-17 team missed out in 2007 and 2011 – is the loss of resources in professional soccer. Serie A clubs have had to lower budgets as revenues have stopped growing as quickly for various reasons, including aging stadiums, dwindling attendance, disappointing broadcast rights and sponsorship values, etc. – a consequence of decades of short-sighted management. There may actually be an opportunity for youth soccer there as clubs will eventually be forced to double down on youth development to compete.
What's wrong with Italian youth soccer isn't the changing makeup of Italy's populace. It's stone-aged notions like Sacchi's.
Leander Schaerlaeckens is a soccer columnist for Yahoo Sports. Follow him on Twitter @LeanderAlphabet.
