You see the comments from the likes of Neville etc saying Italy have no chance, what does he know about Italian football other than a few reinforced stereotypes?
Then you see them here, saying Italy are maybe the 4th best team or that. Italy are champions. They had a tough path in the knockout stages and came through. Football matches can be won many ways, youâve got to be able to grit it out at times, against Spain it took amazing mental focus to soak up their patient possession play for the game, against England Italy had go chase and drag themselves back into it and thatâs why we are the Champions - we can do it anyway.
In the past 27 years, we have been in 5 major international finals, winning two. We are always dangerous - we have that tradition and pedigree some nations like England donât so maybe itâs time commentators and pundits start to show Italy the respect they deserve.
We donât need to be congratulated on our draw in the final. If the Italians are so excited about their draw in the semi final and final and getting declared as tournament winners, good luck to them, thatâs their prerogative. Iâd imagine if England had ended up getting declared as tournament winners after a draw, it would have felt a bit flat.
The last 3 English men to manage their country before Southgate were Steve McClaren, Roy Hodgson and Sam Allardyce - they didnât have a single international cap between them. Iâd be surprised if any other major football nation in the last 50 years went through a run of managers like that with such limited success in their playing careers.
Italy may well have been to 5 finals in the last 27 years as youâve stated, but Italy would rank well behind Germany, France and Spain in the modern day pecking order.
For a start, the Germans, France and Spain have all won 3 finals each since the start of the 1990âs. Won them properly, no draws in there in any of those 9 final wins or relying on the lottery of a penalty shoot out. A few performances for the ages in there as well. Spain routing Italy 4-0 in the Euros final in 2012. France winning two World Cup Finals inside 90 minutes, 3-0 and 4-2.
Of the 5 finals Italy have been involved in that youâve cited, theyâve won none of them. 3 draws and 2 defeats. Held scoreless in 2 of them and just the single goal in the other 3. The common denominator with the only 3 finals in the European Championship and World Cup Final inside the last 45 years that failed to produce a winner is that Italy were involved in all 3.
English football hasnât produced many great managers over the last 30 years . I think the Howard Wilkinson is the last English man to manage the English league winners . That was 29 years ago
You can discuss that until the cows come home but that is a fact
Iâd agree with that but itâs not because players without a notable playing background arenât getting a chance, the previous 3 managers are surely confirmation of that. In the Premier league last season 10 of the clubs had an English manager, 7 of them had very ordinary playing careers.
Brazil have had a good few managers who I think either werenât players at all - Sebastiao Lazaroni and Carlos Alberto Parreira, or were very much journeymen as players - Luiz Felipe Scolari, Vanderlei Luxemburgo and current manager Tite.
Italy have had managers who were journeymen players. Azeglio Vicini, Giampiero Ventura. Marcello Lippi and Cesare Prandelli did have good Serie A experience as players but werenât star names and didnât win caps for Italy. Arrigo Sacchi who reached the final with Italy in 1994 wasnât a player at all but did have his great success with AC Milan to fall back on.
For anybody who is wondering I did use Wikipedia to confirm my impressions about some of the names mentioned in this post.
Any of them nations have 3 such managers in a row? They may have, but id say its far from the norm with major nations. England are an outlier in how they have given the biggest managerial job in the country to men with very limited playing careers, I donât think your original suggestion stands up to any scrutiny at all.
McLaren did ok a Middlebrough but wasnât a top manager.
Roy Hodgson has a decent career but it didnât work out in England job
Sam was a good manager but made an awful bollix of himself
Of the current crop of young English managers who had stellar playing careers the jury is out - Lampard bombed at Chelsea and next step will be interesting . Rooney - novice . Gerrard has done well but will need to move on to really prove himself . John Terry still an assistant .
Go back to the England teams of 1990 to 1996 vintage & very few were even average managers .
Because there is so much money floating around the English game itâs very hard for English coaches who were journeymen players to work their way up to the top clubs, because top continental coaches can be signed. I think the ultra-competitive nature of English club football also leads these managers into being pigeonholed as âpragmaticâ or âfirefightersâ.
The cult of the former player turned manager in UK football still exists, where high profile former players have a route into high profile jobs that lower profile home grown coaches tend not to have. In UK football over the last 25 years weâve seen Bryan Robson, Roy Keane, Neil Lennon, Alan Shearer, Frank Lampard, Steven Gerrard etc walk into high profile jobs with little or no experience. Ole Gunnar Solskjaer would be a variation on this theme, he had managerial experience but at a much lower level than his current job and clearly only got it because of his hero status at Manchester United.
Thereâs a suspicion of education in the English game. Thereâs also far more diversity in social class in other European footballing cultures too. There was a chapter on it in âwhy England lose at footballâ