In Italy there’s also a big problem with giving game time to youngsters unlike “rival” nations such as Spain which translates to players in their early twenties with basically no first team experience because managers are scared to play them

If Moise Keane is your default backup striker, something has gone wrong.

As an Italian myself, it’s not just that we don’t have any world class (or actually good) strikers anymore, we basically don’t have any world class player in any position (maybe Chiesa, Barella & Donnarumma maybe but that’s being generous) which is just so sad to see. We’ve been in a downward spiral ever since winning the 2006 World Cup (despite winning the Euros in 2021), there have surely been other times of crisis during the National’s team long lifetime, but I generally have no clue if there are any signs of this one coming to an end as well.

Immobile is Italy's best striker however his club form never translates when playing for his country and he isn't the only one. Kean, Scammaca, Belotti, Caputo, Raspadori. Italian strikers have struggled when playing for their country. Gone are the days of Toni, Del Piero, Totti, Gilardino, Vieri, Di Natale and Balotelli when they can score goals for both club and country. Many other countries have a striker crisis. Look at Spain when they lost Villa, Germany when they lost Klose and Brazil when they lost Ronaldo. Neither countries found decent replacements for them. Then there's Italy losing key leaders since conquering Europe in Euro 2020. Many of them are either old or other have already retired for good. Plus the players that replaced them are mid at best hence Italy missed out on two World Cup tournaments.

It's not about the strikers, our national record is 35 goals and stands there since the 70s, meanwhile we still won something or at the very least fought for it, the problem is what's wrong with our defenders and goalkeepers. We used to say "Buffon is injured for EURO 2000? Oh no, anyway..." while Toldo proceeds to become the best keeper in the tournament. The most frightening thing of all is that we always had the best defenders and goalkeepers in the world, Zoff, Zenga, Pagliuca, Buffon. Gentile, Bergomi, Baresi, Maldini, Vierchowod, Nesta, Cannavaro, Barzagli, Chiellini and now we have Donnarumma, Bastoni and Scalvini? Bastoni and Acerbi? Not good enough, since Donnarumma is still only as good as when he was 19 at Milan since PSG can't develop their players for shit. The last 10 years have been horrible for us, almost every youngster either was a complete degenerate or was heavily injury prone or both, Marchisio basically retired at 30 years old because of injuries, Giuseppe Rossi's knees imploded far too many times, Balotelli and Cassano decided to throw their careers away because they couldn't behave, Di Natale was happy being a big fish in a small pond at Udine and limited himself despite his talent, El Shaarawy scored 14 goals in 18 matches while he was only 20 then started doing coke and stayed off half a season then went to China, Zaniolo destroyed his knees a couple of times and to make it worse he's as thick as oatmeal, Sensi poor guy was even better than Barella but he spent more time injured than fit since he joined Inter first squad, Donnarumma and Verratti wasted their careers at PSG a team that give their players 0 development and after that Verratti goes to Arab retirement home while only 30, Tonali just gambled it all away (pun intended), Chiesa is 1 ACL away from becoming Giuseppe Rossi n.2. Let's face it, I'm still gonna scream my lungs out at the anthem and cheer whoever wears that jersey but we are fucked.

I think that the problem was actually started on the midfield. In the 90's, Italy was a paradise for a type of player called "fantasista". A player who got an attacking role, but is not a striker. These players are usually gifted with technical ability out of fantasy. Players like Baggio, Del Piero, Totti, Di Natale, and Gianfranco Zola were this kind of player. These players often became the main attention of the opponent defenders, made it easy for a poacher striker to lose their markers and score goals. Today, these kind of players have disappeared almost entirely. Italy's best midfielders are now defensively oriented midfielders like Barella, Jorginho, Pellegrini, Locatelli and Verratti. Not only strikers, Italy also have a shortage of attacking midfielders. Even wingers are also rare. Compared to other national team which have an abundance of stock on attacking midfielders and wingers. And that's why Italian strikers have difficulties in scoring goals, because nobody assist them from the second line.

My old man said that when he went on holiday to Italy, he saw that when playing football, the big kids were bullying the little kids to be strikers, while the big kids were in defence. somewhat the opposite of English kids, and that he reckoned this was why there were so many diminutive Italian strikers like Zola and Di Canio. Defending is just more fashionable there, hence Maldini, Baresi, Nesta, Costacourta, Bonnuci, Chielini etc etc

Its a world football problem right now. the 4-3-3 system has coaches training to have their players be dynamic strikers like Ronaldo and Messi. We lost the art of the target man or traditional strikers like Falcao. Only true target men are in that position because of their physical nature like Lukaku and Haaland.

Italy is no longer a dominant nation in football, it’s very sad to see

In the late 90s, they also had players like Pierluigi Casiraghi, Gianluca Vialli, and Gianfranco Zola in reserve

It's not like we ever had strikers who could put up incredible numbers with the National Team... The likes of Vieri, Inzaghi, Toni, Del Piero, Totti ecc never even came close to scoring 50+ goals for Italy, and the all time record is still the 35 goals scored from Gigi Riva between the 60s and the 70s. And behind him there are Meazza and Piola who played in the 30s and 40s, while the most recent top scorers are Baggio and Del Piero with 27 each. Statpadding against weaker opponents has simply never been our forte, regardless of the pedigree of our front line.

I grew up watching Football Italia on channel 4 and in just that era Italy had the likes of Baggio, Vialli, Del Piero, Pipo Inzaghi, Vieri, Signori, Mancini, Totti, Locatelli, Chiesa, Montella, Toni, Zola, Ravanelli, Casiraghi, Delveccio, Di Natale et al. Guys like Dario Hubner and Simone Inzaghi were decent Serie A strikers in the 90/00's who never got a chance in the national team would probably have 100 caps if they were playing today.

Pellegri was also incredibly unlucky with injuries. Really set him back.

Back in 2017-2019, I really hoped Patrick Cutrone would be the next "bomber" for Milan and Italy for years to come. You know, in his debut season he scored 18 times at the age of 19 and 20. Fast forward to 2023, he's 25 now and playing for Como in Serie B, where he still struggles to make it past 10 goals per season. Sad.

You could say the same with Germany and Spain too. Crazy how such massive football nations cannot produce any decent number 9s

Same counts for my country the Netherlands. I remember having: kluivert, bergkamp, hasselbaink, van Hooijdonk, and van Nistelrooy in one generation to just having Memphis.

Why don't Italy have any world class players anymore fullstop

The future of the #9 is a julian alvarez type. Non stop pressing, very technical and able to build up play. But also a real goal threat, not tall or physical necessarily.

You disrespected Julian and Lautaro a little bit too much. Lautaro has 152 G/A from 250 appearances with Inter, and Julian has literally won everything already and is steadily improving. Of course Crespo and Batitusta were better but listing Argentina’s still relatively elite frontline alongside the likes of Nicolas Fullkrug, Richarlison and Nketiah seems a little bit too disrespectful. Spain would’ve been a much better example imo

Italy crushes the confidence of forwards. I expected Lorenzo Colombo to give Olivier Giroud support at Milan, he has thunder in his left foot. So what does Milan do - they loan him to Monza. Juventus consider Vlahovic surplus, Nicolo Fagioli was deemed ready for prime time. So what happens, Chelsea rejects Vlahovic and Fagioli gets suspended in a gambling scandal. Even if they do qualify for the Euro, he wont be available. That's a shame, a Chiesa/Fagioli partnership would have been formidable.

Not only striker, but in almost all positions. When I started watching football in the 90s, the talent pool in Italy is massive. Maldini, Nesta, Vieri, Del Piero, Toldo, Peruzzi, Costacurta, Pipo Inzaghi, Zambrotta, Conte, Buffon, Pirlo Cannavaro, Totti, Panucci and the likes. The core of each Serie A teams are Italians. Unlike now, I mostly see eastern europeans and africans in Serie A teams. At most, there are only 2 to 3 Italians in the 1st eleven. The main problem is that they don't give opportunities to Italian youngsters. It is ironic that the majority of Serie A managers are Italians and they don't even trust their fellow coutrymen in the academy. Maybe they should put again limits on number of foreign players that can play in an Italian club. During the 80s up to 90s, the limit is 3 foreign players per club if I remember it right.

Great video as always from a azzurri supporter. You listed many of the problems for the lack of a great CF but there are also a few others post 2006. The game has passed the #9 as even in 06 Toni only scored 2 goals in the WC. Then came the pms issue which infuriated us for the next 6 years being the blackballing of our most talented fwd Antonio Cassano from the NT. As seen in the great run in Euro 2012 in which he flourished and got us to the final for another added reason. A consistent starting 11, in 2012 more than half the squad were starters on the Juventus squad that year along with other mainstays to the NT. Since then we never fired a consistent lineup, I believe our match vs England we started 8 guys who previously didn’t start vs Malta. This is nothing new as any supporter can tell you. Often we hear of a new call up and we have to Google who said player even plays for domestically. We would have someone on international break in the past like Berardi, Bellotti, Pelle score a brace only to be benched the next match. Last but not least this squad misses their best player maker Lorenzo Insigne simply for the fact they won’t call him up since he now plays in the MLS. Can you imagine Argentina doing that with Messi now?

There was a time when gianfranco zola couldn't even start a game in world cup 1994 thanks to roberto baggio. That's how bad and how low italian calcio has fallen

Alfie you should make a video talking about What on Earth is Happening with Santos FC. They lost 7-1 to Internacional this Sunday and will probably be relegated for their 1st time in history.

Same everywhere to be honest the number 9 has all but been phased out of the game.

I started believing Italy was in trouble when they started serious campaigning for a host of Brazilians like Joao Pedro, Luiz Felipe (now in Betis), Roger Ibanez, Toloi, Jorginho, and notably Gabriel Martinelli at (Arsenal) to play for the Squadra Azzura.

Good video! I think a good video idea would be why do players who typically peak younger usually die out at an early age (Hazard, Neymar, Rooney) and players who blossom a bit older in there career (Modric, Vardy, Luca Toni) usually go on until their mid 30s. Always found that interesting and how players like Messi and Ronaldo were able to be one of the best young talents in the world at 18-20 and still continue to be at the top in their mid and late 30s

🇧🇬 🇧🇬 🇧🇬 Day 1 - Alfie, please do a video on the pitiful situation the Bulgarian national football team is currently in. Here are a couple of points to give you an idea about what I'm talking about: - Currently, the team is in a streak of 8 winless games, at the bottom of its qualification group for the 2024 Euro, with no chances of qualifying, after losing to opponents such as Montenegro and Lithuania. - The team's last win was almost a year ago - on 16.11.2022 in a friendly against Cyprus. Our last win in an official match was more than a year ago - on 26.09.2022 against North Macedonia. - The national football team of Bulgaria has been constantly performing bad for at least the last 20 years. The last big tournament we played was the 2004 Euro in Portugal, where we were humiliated in the group stage. - Many supporters blame the current bosses of the Bulgarian Football Union for this downfall. The most notable of them are Borislav Mihaylov, Emil Kostadinov and Yordan Lechkov - 3 players who were part of the great 1994 WC team which reached the semi-finals of the tournament. Sadly, those people's success as players has been overshadowed by their lack of capability or willingness to resolve many of the problems in our football - the out-of-date training systems, the poor football infrastructure etc. What's worse is that they refuse to resign a failure after another and they have changed the rules of the union in a way that makes them irremovable for more than 18 years. - Recently a couple of players from the next generation - Dimitar Berbatov, Stiliyan Petrov and Martin Petrov started a campaign, trying to overthrow the aforementioned but as I said the rules are in the bosses' favour. - Meanwhile fans are getting really angry with the situation and are starting to take measures. Last weekend, during many matches of the First and Second Football Leagues the fans were chanting against Mihaylov and company and displayed banners against them. Of course, the BFU fined the clubs for "obscene chants and banners". - There is a campaign on social media calling fans of all local clubs to put their differences aside and come to the Euro qualifier with Hungary on 16.11 and show their disapproval of the current BFU leaders. That's the main points, I'm sure that if you dig a little you'll find much more. Please consider doing such a video, the anti-BFU sentiments are getting stronger and we need to disturb those self-serving ex-legends in every way possible. Thank you and keep up the good work!

Its crazy as a Nigerian watching a team like Italy struggle with forwards meanwhile we are currently having selection headaches with the sheer amount of attacking talent currently available and still coming through the youth system.

I miss the times when strikers were just required to score goals. As a Dutchman, my favourite player will always be Van Basten, but probably my second favourite is Filippo Inzaghi. Always at the right moment, at the right time. You didn't see him all game until the ball was suddenly in the back of the net.

I remember when the likes of Di Canio can't even get call up to Italy national team, then we regress till we make Zaza take penalty

I think it's a natural result from the disappearance of the 4-4-2. The number of Strikers overall is in decline. The probability of finding great strikers is the same

I did notice a bit that the Italian national team have less potent strikers or no top strikers nowadays but I hope the national team would produce many strikers like Francesco Totti sir,Filippo Inzaghi sir and Alessandro Del Piero sir in near future,good friends!!!🙏🏻

In Nigeria it seems as if we have the complete opposite problem… too many good strikers 😂😂 maybe Italy should take some

Very relevant topic I think the last Italian player to take a shot on target on WC is Andrea Pirlo. (personal openion)

Everyone out there have a great day

"It is a striking set of statistics" I see what you did there

Hey Alfie, I’ve been watching your channel for a few years now but I have a video idea and I would appreciate if you’re able to check it out. I’d like to see a video on the Nigerian national team and how they’re underachievers especially for African standards perhaps titled ‘Nigeria: Africas biggest underachievers’. Ever since the 90s, we have always had the one of the most valuable African squads in Africa and some of the most notable African players, yet we have yet to make to the quarterfinals of a WC and we only won Afcon once since 94. I believe this would make a good video.

Nigeria has all the strikers now (Osimhen, Boniface, Awoniyi, Lookman, Iheanacho, Orban)

Thank you for the video, I was asking myself the same thing the other day when Italy played England . I think that Italy need more the old fashion number 10 like they used to have back in the 90's, and early 2000. Italy used to have some of the greatest number 10 in football history; only Brazil can brag about having better number 10 than Italy. Who doesn't remember players like Baggio, Viali, Totti, Delpiero, Mancini or Dicanio. I think that these kinda players used to make italy great, bc they used to do almost everything on the field, and most of the time score plenty of important goals. Football has changed a lot, especially bc of Giardiola and Barcelona, but I think that if Italy starts to produce more of these old fashion number 10 like they used to back in the days, they would get back to their old glory even though they won the Euros 2 years ago.

I will recommend them to secure themselves Nicolo Tresoldi, who plays for Hannover in Bundesliga 2, good talent who is currently playing for German U 21

Alfie, Italy has stopped player development. My cousin in Naples owned and ran a football school for years. I saw the lack of investment into youth football in Italy first hand. I saw kids who were phenoms...unfortunately their parents are well off and don't want their kids to be footballers. I am talking natural talent. I watched 6 year old kid named Enzo, a son of an engineer, destroy 8 and 9 year old kids. His dribbling, ball control, vision, shooting and passing were way beyond his years. His father said he wants him to play sport for the competition and comradery but his son will go to university, not play football for a living. It's really sad to see and hear that. This kid could be the future of Italian football and his parents dont't want him to be. Respect to his parents, their kid but man, to deprive the world of such talent is beyond me...

Without an out and out! The new set up

Italy has a diminishing population. Young generations are dwindling in numbers ad everything is geared towards the older population it has. Hence the impact towards its producing of young footballing talent.

I dont think Italy ever has sensational goalscorers in the mould of van basten, gerd muller, ronaldo, romario, etc.. the closest they have in modern times is Filipo Inzaghi, Luca Toni, Christian Vieri, Di Natale. They have very good strikers but rarely have legendary ones. Del Piero and Totti are great attackers. They are more like No.10 who can also score goals. Like Roberto Baggio. Also as others has pointed out. Italy strikers often somehow only find form in international tournaments (Schilacci, to an extent Paolo Rossi), and often did not translate club form to national team. Also i agree it seems to be a more widespread problem. The same can be said for Brazil especially, Netherlands and Germany. Hard to see a striker reach the level of Ronaldo, Van Nistelrooy, Van Persie or Klose.

Another issue is the lack of world class defenders to cover up for lack of goals. Maldini, Nesta, Costacurta, Cannavaro etc with Buffon in goal could be relied upon not to ship goals. Mention the Italian national teams greatest ever players and more often than not it’s defensive players that come to mind. This, as a half Italian who supports the Azzurri, is something I’ve noticed over time. No way would we have won the Euros with the current defence we have now regardless of who plays upfront. My two cents worth.

Great video Alfie

When I saw Retegui being called to the italian NT is when the crisis was made explicit to me, he had a couple good seasons in the argentine league, but he was the striker at Tigre, not a big club, fucking Tigre. He is decent, but there's a reason why Scaloni didn't consider him for the NT

What On Earth Is Going On At Sampdoria?

As a British person who was born in 2002 and only started properly watching football in 2014 (the World Cup) this video really helped me know why this has become a problem. I've always generally liked Italy and their national team and I never quite understood why they got bad again after the Euro's but now I do. Eventually they will get better again but might not be for a while yet though. My favourite players for them at the 2021 Euro's were Donmarumma, Federico Chiesa and Spinazzola. What's happened to Spinazzola? I hope they can qualify for the Euro's still

Hey man, love your content. I have a request for a video. I've recently moved to Basel in Switzerland and was telling my girlfriend that they're one of the best teams, and maybe we will be in a good spot to go and watch champions League games if they do well. But to my shock, they are currently last in the Swiss League and apparently it's not been going well for them for a few years. I thought they were THE team in Switzerland. Would love one of your 'What the hell is going on' videos for Basel. I've tried doing a bit of research but still non the wiser, I'll leave the detective work to the pros.

The problem for Italy is larger than football it’s the fact it’s the oldest country in Europe and Italy simply stopped having children. Europe as a whole are going through this as well in 20 years Europe is going to be in trouble in football as well as population just no one is talking about it

Even Kane now dropped deep and being utilized in midfield more. Like they say, survival of the fittest, either you adapt or go extinct.

When playing at Atalanta Inzaghi scored a free kick, you can find it here on UKposts. Mind blowing.

Ever since I got interested in football in 1996, Italy has had this revolving cast of strikers at their disposal. Some were constant parts of the team over long years (like Del Piero, Inzaghi, Vieri), some were only short-term members of the squad (like Casiraghi, Enrico Chiesa, Ravanelli), some were controversial (Roberto Baggio, Cassano, Balotelli), but the one thing that always seemed to connect them was the fact that they seemed to vastly underperform once they lined up for their country compared to their club.

Cracking video 😊

“…bettered by the likes of Scotland” hurt my feelings Very good content as always though. My favourite UKposts football channel. Italy has a very unhealthy football culture and the result makes me sad because I’m old enough to remember how excited I was as a kid to watch it on a Sunday morning on C4. Those were the days. What Italy wouldn’t give for Beppe Signori today, even though he’s largely forgotten and barely got a game for them back then.

When I got to watch Serie A highlights in Australia, Vieri, Inzaghi & Del Piero were amazing. 1990's Italian football was the best in the world Forget the Milan teams, Juventus, Lazio & Roma because plenty of other teams likes Sampdoria, Parma & Fiorentina were lit. And so were many others. Balotelli is not everyone's cup of tea, but he had an outstanding Euro 2012.

The classic number 9, target man type striker role is vanishing very fast, at least in Europe. The problem is not just with Italy. Germany has the same problem. If you think closely, other nations also have very limited options, example: England has only Kane, France has only Giroud and Benzema, Spain has only Morata.

Nowadays with social media, there is immense pressure on players, strikers in particular, to play well. And for strikers its really easy to tell if they play well or not. Why would a youngster want to play striker and be criticized for scoring 4 goals in 13 matches, when they can play a midfielder that scores 4 goals in 40 matches and everyone is find with it. Not to mention there are 4-5 midfielder spots in a team and only 1 striker role.

Serie A doesn't let youth players develop

Surprisingly, Italy's all-time scorer is from a long time ago and only has 35 goals. I'm surprised players like Baggio, Vieri, Del Piero, and Totti couldn't beat that.

Inzaghi was absolutely class

The fact that italy missed the last world cup and are at risk of missing this euros as defending champs is beyond embarrassing......not to mention they didnt qualify for russia 2018 either !!!

Though I am completely devoted to Argentina, I really missed seeing an Italian team in the World Cup😢

It happens to everybody. It’s a cycle. Everyone will go through bad periods, nobody can always stay at the top

Ever since Mario balotelli Italy really miss that position it's have been almost a decade

Don't forget that Vieri was raised in Australian so he may not really count as an Italian centre-forward in that sense as they weren't responsible for his development. This comment may age terribly after watching the video where he may well say exactly that.

As a Paraguayan, it is so sad to watch Germany and Italy suffering similar problems. This is even more sad because our Paraguay is basically suffering from the same crisis. There is no faith on the jersey of both German and Italian players.

Enjoyed that - no mention of Biaggio or Schillaci on the list of great Italian strikers

9:31 dude really tried sneaking in Nketiah with Toney, Abraham, Watkins, and Wilson lol

Italy do still do create good defenders and midfields, such as barella and bastoni. Not many of course, but still a few gems here and there

I mean, who doesn't have this problem lol, unless we talking about Nigeria, England and maybe even Serbia

3:31 God bless you for mentioning FCSB and Compagno.

❤YOU ARE THE BEST AS ALWAYS ❤HELLO FROM LAS VEGAS ❤❤

I think a lot of younger Italian players need to leave Italy for their own development and not just strikers. They won’t get enough first team football in Italy since managers can’t really afford to play them. There is a lot of good young talent in the youth sides but the transition to first team football is the issue.

They need to call up Luca Toni only the real ones remember him

i think inzaghi would work in a pep team that creates tap in opportunities. he was amazing at finding space and fighting to get the last touch. so he would deffo be able to tap it in in a pep team.

can you make a video about Nigeria’s incredible depth at striker but drop off in midfield and defense?

I don’t think this is just an Italy problem. Most of the best national teams don’t have world-class strikers right now. Just look at Spain, France, Germany and Brazil Edit : Maybe not France

The problem is wider than just forwards. Where England, Japan, Spain, Germany all looked at their failings and decided to do something about it starting with the grassroots and up, in Italy, we did nothing. We didn't win the Euro's as much as England lost them (I'm not talkkng about the shootout but the lack of ambition once they went a goal up) and 2006 was the last hurrah of that series of generations of top talent that started in the 60s. We are in for a long dry spell but to be honest. Any win is so rare, I'll take what we did win in my lifetime and be grateful.

This is because Italian football tactics have changed. Since the era of Pep and Tiki taka Barcelona. The role of the classic striker is not that important. Because whatever position all players can score goals.

To be fair, all the big countries don't have a world class centre forward. Italy,Spain,Germany,Netherlands,Portugal, Brazil. There are few these days.

Isn't it shameful to lose the 2021 European Championship final at home with superstar Kane against a team without a striker.

You ploughed through a lot of stats there Alfie but not many actual explanations were offered as to why Italy lacks goal poachers. Vieri made a fair point, kids maybe are getting drawn in to overly technical styles of play by watching so much online stuff or video games. Is it the lack of academy roles for teenagers in general?

Great video

My international team, glad for this insight.

Chicharito at United was a world class poacher

Why don't any countries have any strikers no more should be the question. There is only a handful of top strikers across Europe's top leagues. Rewind a couple of decades ago and you were spoilt for choice. Pep's Barcelona and Spain 08-12 changed football forever and not for the better

Arrigo Sacchi said it best, neither do Italian teams want to develop their young Italian players, nor do they even have them often times in the youth academies (they bring players from foreign nations) Why? it's cheaper, and can potentially flip them for a better price with less risk (less losses better said). As always, it's about what potential selling price can be attached to the player with the least cost in developing him. Watching a Juve-Milan where 4 Italians out of 22 are fielded, or a Real Madrid-Sevilla where only 3 Spaniards are fielded is a tragedy. Italy seems to be like the Spanish League of the 90's, if you do not field minimum 3-4 balcanic players, what are you doing? It's purely speculation, it's how Italian clubs make their money, like Ajax, Sevilla, or Benfica. Modern football.

Something for those top scorer stats. It seems that there are more international games and is continuing to increase

The Argentina comparison doesn’t hold up. Julian and Lautaro are both incredibly world class

I've been bored by football since that Spain win in 2012. There've been some high moments and some superb CFs since then, but CFs have declined, the fearless strikers have declined and generally scoring has not been as exciting across football. Suarez leaving the Premier League was significant. Only a brief time seeing Diego Costa in-form at Chelsea was not enough. Drogba left. Benzema was fun for a bit. No doubt that Lewandowski has been great. Callum Wilson cannot play enough minutes. Ollie Watkins is good... not great. Just not enough in the past 10 years to make things exciting enough. You see it in the World Cups too --and sometimes there's a striker who is only in the group stages that really excites. No other sport has suffered this kind of decline in entertainment value due to a glaring absence in a key position. Start making those adept, aggressive centre backs into strikers again FFS!

Didn't expect my favorite player Domenico Berardi to be in a HITC Sevens video multiple times

Look obviously nowadays we have a big problem with strikers but Scamacca isn't a bad player even though he failed at West Ham, i think that if he finds himself in good environment he could become a very good player

Raspadori is the one Italian player who could occupy that role, though he is not physically powerful or tall he is quite accurate in front of goal. For some reason neither Mancini nor Spalletti appear to fully trust him. For the rest indeed Italian strikers have been worsening not recently, but over 20+ years. Gilardino and Toni were good but they were already inferior to the likes of Vieri/Inzaghi, and in turn Balotelli was a worse player though reasonably reliable. Then Immobile and Pellé became the main strikers and Italy stopped qualifying for competitions...

My opinion is a bit long here. It is not that Italy does not have strikers, they do have and their recent U20 successes suggested they have strikers. The problem is Italy have done it all wrong in all level. First is the Calciopoli and its ghost continues to haunt them when several Italian players are found betting than playing as with Tonali case. Second is Italy have been historically focusing on defence without a solid attacking plan. Third is, they appointed wrong manager, they made consistent mistakes with Vertura, Mancini and now they still opt a domestic coach to continue their own miseries unaddressed. Fourth, the country’s football remains plagued by mafia as they still control Italian football undeclared. My suggestion is Italy must end contract with Spalletti and seriously starts considering a non-Italian coach. That means bring forth somebody else, who is not Italian (and thus not linked to mafia) to fuel their youngsters potential. My expectation is like that. There are diverse options, though I back Fernando Santos to replace Spalletti as coach. The biggest problem however, is Italy being too conservative. Many Italians have long claimed “only Italian solutions for Italian problems”, which I found from their deep resentment over being questioned to appoint a non-Italian coach and their failure to fire Mancini after his Qatar bid ended in failure. But with the fact their football has been plagued to crisis, if they are still conservative like this, then Italians should expect their next tournament since Euro 2020 may have to begin in 2032.

We were waiting for your video to explain us why, now we'll become the very best in the world again thank you very much.

I would think scamacca struggling for West Ham says more about premier leagues disposable nature when it comes to player development. As for goal ratio for Italy consider that he is playing for a Italy side which lack technical quality and a lot of this appearances were off the bench.

If Italy has a club like Barcelona who developed young talent then never face players problem