Calcio Debate: Can England Really Criticize Italy?

Serie A has been described as a retirement home for the world's best footballers by the English media. Goal.com's Salvatore Landolina, though, insists that the English game should take a look at itself before taking aim at other footballing cultures...

A number of English journalists have taken swipes at Serie A this week. One piece in particular has caused controversy. An article in The Times by a respected writer criticised the Italian game, describing it as, “a retirement home for ageing footballers or a get-rich-quick scheme for those who lacked ambition,” and “a long way short of the Premier League.”

The writer went on to mention the arrivals of Gianfranco Zola, Fabrizio Ravanelli and Gianluca Vialli to the Premier League as well as the fast change in trends and power. Fast change? That was twelve years ago. All the usual negativities were drawn up - violence, Calciopoli, scandals - as he attempted to shoot down Calcio in order to provoke a reaction.

And the writer has the cheek to say Italians are trouble makers! So why start such trouble?

Renzo Ulivieri, a former coach, summed up Oliver Kay’s rant best.

“It’s the pot calling the kettle black,” said the coach. “England has a nice League, but if you look carefully they have foreign coaches, foreign players and even foreign club owners from all over the world.

“I really doubt they are in any position to criticise Italian football. Besides, I certainly wouldn’t say that Ronaldinho or Andriy Shevchenko are old.”

This spat comes just days after another top English journalist Patrick Barclay slammed England manager Fabio Capello for not understanding English culture, insisting that Steve McClaren was a better choice as the country's national coach.

If Steve McClaren and every other former England coach understood the English culture so much, why have the Three Lions have not won anything since 1966? tThey didn’t even qualify for Euro 2008, yet their understanding is clearly better than Capello’s. The perspective of English culture is so great amongst English coaches that they run away when they hear about an England manager’s vacancy. It's the job that nobody wants. And the nation did with bus drivers in the 1950’s, England has looked abroad for someone to come in and do the job.

Yellow-Belly Tune

Serie A is making a comeback. Ronaldinho and Jose Mourinho, two superstar names, moved to Italy because they want a real challenge, where trophies are won by hard graft on the pitch rather than bought by millionaire foreign owners who have turned the English game into a casino, with 'Russian roulette' the game of choice.

Serie A has problems, but Italy doesn’t brush everything under the carpet and start picking on other countries in an attempt to deflect attention from the mire surrounding several top Premier League teams, as well as the perpetual mess the England national side finds itself in.

The number of imported talents in the Premier League has reached record highs, with the emphasis on bringing in non-English players and managers, rather than on developing youth for the national side. While there's nothing wrong with that, when things go wrong the same foreigners take all the blame. They're used as scapegoats because certain people at the top of the English game don’t have the guts to or the humility to say, ‘it’s our fault for trusting the other man in the first place.’ Instead, they unbutton the white shirt and dance around to the yellow-belly tune.

The Germans were blamed for Euro 96, Maradona was blamed for 1986 and the trend continues as England continues to take aim at foreigners with Capello the latest victim of the English media’s 'point the finger at everyone but ourselves' masterplan.

It’s perhaps ironic that Kay mentioned hooligans and violence affecting the game in Italy, but he fails to remember that the whole hooliganism movement began in Blighty during the 1970s and spread around Europe like the plague. He also never mentioned that a Premier League footballer tried to be a role model to younger players and fans by having a fight outside a McDonalds restaurant one Saturday night.

Films such as the “Football Factory” and “Green Street” examine footballing violence, but they weren’t made in Italy.

The problem in England is that journalists don’t really understand football outside of Britain. The culture is too insular and such ignorance is only likely to help people like Kay dig a deeper hole for themselves.

Salvatore Landolina