For years Juve fans have
proudly referred to the Italian national team as “ItalJuve” due to the large
number of Juve players playing for club and country. And rival club fans have
sarcastically called it the same thing, implying a bias toward the club and
it’s players, especially under former Juve coach Antonio Conte. But the tide
has changed significantly. For at least the second international break running,
Milan have had the most players called up for Italy, with six. So will this team be called
ItalMilan?
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| Italy's future is now |
There are several
significant reasons for this shift in Milan’s presence in the Azzurri. The first is that Juventus have
fewer Italians starting for them now than they have in some time. And of those
Italians who get playing time, many are aging and/or oft-injured. Whether you
like to blame Allegri for those injuries or the fact that they are playing in
Champions League (even if the truth is probably a little of both,) the bottom line is
that Juventus simply have fewer Italian players available.
Conversely, Milan’s “poor
little rich boy” Berlusconi and his virtually extinct “Condor” all-in-one
scout/sporting director/CEO/wage bill growing/”free” transfer guru Galliani
accidentally stumbled onto a gold mine of young Italian talent in our youth
sector because they couldn’t afford to buy “real” players. (By “real” players,
of course I mean players who are aging, past their prime, and have ridiculously
large wages, as per Galliani’s tradition.) Either that, or you could say that
they simply didn’t sell our young talent for peanuts since they had no other
choice than to promote them. But for Milan, it has been a delicious change of
fortunes, something the fans have wanted all along.
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| Say what you will about Ventura, but he's got balls |
Then you have to also
thank Giampiero Ventura, the new Azzurri
coach. I don’t know what his political affections are for the various clubs,
but I can only guess that coaching at Torino for five years, he is going to be
less favorable to Juventus’ players anyway. But any political preferences
aside, he noticed Milan’s Italian treasures right away. When he first visited
Milanello after being appointed, he said “There are many Italians here, unlike
elsewhere.” (via
football-italia.net) And he has followed up that statement with his
callups, even giving a 17 year old Donnarumma and 21 year old Romagnoli their
first senior national team callups. Ironically, he was very much linked with
the Milan job before Montella was hired. I guess maybe this is the next best
thing?
When you consider Italy’s
rich heritage and four World Cup titles, it is really exciting to think that
Milan players could play such a big role in the national team. And obviously, the connotations that gives to Milan's future success as well. Whether our
players will stay at Milan with the coming changes or not remains to be seen.
And whether or not they are all worthy of the honor of wearing the Azzurri shirt and can help bring future
glory to Italy is also unknown. Certainly there are a lot of deserving young
Italians in other teams, too. But if trends continue, it might just be Milan
fans’ turn to say “ItalMilan” with pride.
This post inspired by the music of “Fratelli
d’Italia”