Mediocre foreigners, slow football and referees - The three major issues facing Italian football

Martin Macdonald

• 12 Mar 2026 07:01 CDT
• 4 min read

News

This season could prove to be a monumentally damaging one for Italian football, and in a lot of ways already has been.

The performance of Serie A sides in the Champions League has been worrying.

Napoli finished 30th out of 36 teams in the League Phase and were eliminated at that stage, Juventus lost over two legs against Galatasaray in the playoff stage, Inter were comfortably knocked out at the same stage by tournament surprise package Bodo/Glimt and, most recently, Atalanta were demolished 6-1 by Bayern Munich in the first leg of a last-16 tie this week.

La Dea are the only Italian side left in the competition, but that'll only last a further week.

Things could get even worse for Italian football at national level as the Azzurri face the prospect of missing a third World Cup in a row for the first time in their history.

In European qualification for the World Cup they finished second behind Norway and must now face a UEFA playoff to reach the tournament in the United States, Mexico and Canada this summer.

Italy must first make it past Northern Ireland and then the winner of Wales versus Bosnia and Herzegovina. They are favourites for the former fixture and will be for the latter, but we've been here before and nothing is guaranteed.

Legendary Italian head coach Fabio Capello has highlighted the three main reasons why Italian football is struggling at the moment, and it starts with an influx of foreign players who aren't improving the quality of Serie A, instead holding down spots that could be given to young Italians.

"There is a connection between European flops and World Cup risks, and it starts with the value of foreign players," Capello told Gazzetta dello Sport.

"In my day, when I was playing, I always studied Luis Suarez, the best of them all, as well as [Giacomo] Bulgarelli, who was a few years older than me. They were role models. They were masters. When I was a coach, we had the best in the world in Italy.

"Today, there are [Luka] Modric, [Adrien] Rabiot and a few others. And we sell the really good ones, whereas once, at least until 2010, they all came here because we were a benchmark. Without that example, our players cannot improve. But that's not the only problem.

"The absolute lack of Italian players in Serie A. Foreigners occupy those positions, even if they are modest ones. Do we really think they are all better than ours? Of course, if we were to fail in the third World Cup, I would have no doubt: it would mean that all the policies on our youth football have been wrong."

Italian football has always been a bit slower and more tactical than the hustle and bustle style of the Premier League, for example.

But, Capello believes things have regressed even further in that regard and that lack of tempo in Serie A hurts teams when they play continental football. He also believes that referee intervention continually stops the flow of matches.

"I see the ball moving slowly, I see our players running a little but never sprinting, I see that we play sideways and not vertically," the former Juventus, Real Madrid and England boss explained.

"We tried to copy [Pep] Guardiola's Barcelona and we did it badly, partly because our quality and technique are inferior. We only think about possession, forgetting that possession removes responsibility: all you need to do is pass to the player next to you. And the referees are also to blame.

"We are the only country where an injured player throws himself to the ground, punching the air, and the game stops immediately. The speed is slowed down by the referees: there are no more tackles and physical play, a player who is barely touched throws himself to the ground. But if a player who is 1.90 metres tall spreads his arms to defend the ball and touches someone 10 centimetres shorter, is it possible that the latter will immediately end up on the ground?.

"The VAR officials often don't understand the dynamics of the game; it wouldn't hurt to have a few players watching the video. And another thing: we invented the foul for stamping. But in my day, back in the 1970s, do you remember a foul being called for stamping? Enough is enough."

Inter have reached the Champions League final in two out of the last three seasons but last year they were left embarrassed after a 5-0 defeat by Paris Saint-Germain.

Some pride will be restored if the national team does indeed qualify for the World Cup, but with the team lacking a Roberto Baggio or a Francesco Totti, would you back them to make a real impact in North America?

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