Luca Toni: ‘From Primavera to Serie A, we lack Italian players’

Former Azzurri striker Luca Toni believes the Italian leagues, from Serie A to the primavera, lack Italian players. The 46-year-old former Fiorentina and Bayern Munich forward was speaking with La Gazzetta dello Sport, and explained why he believes the Italian Grwoth decree failed to help the league as a whole:

Italy being out of two World Cups in a row does not help.

“There’s no showcase, but above all, many of our players do not compete in the most important competitions for selection, as well as, as I said, those European club competitions.”

Are the youth teams therefore the main problem and cause?

“If I remember correctly, Lecce won the Primavera championship last season by fielding only foreigners, many clubs are full of them. In my opinion, the growth decree did not help us because it facilitated the arrival of foreigners both at the youth level and in Serie A.”

Germany, it is said, has the problem of the language barrier.

“But the Bundesliga still doesn’t have many teams that attract, nor can they afford certain investments. There are Bayern or Wolfsburg as titles then, or the Dortmund of Immobile, epic teams that were playing in Europe. And then you have to prove first that you are an important player to get there. The same goes for England. If you don’t break through at home, how do they notice you?”

Did you have difficulties?

“The normal ones when you go to a new country. But I made a beautiful choice, in a great club, the best-managed one, where I won immediately, so it’s also easy for you to be loved. Always if you behave well, if you train well, if you don’t do crazy things, Bayern was and is an important club, then I started from scratch as a top scorer… The most beautiful thing for me was to come back now on TV for the Bayern-Lazio match in the Champions League and discover the whole curva singing for me and applauding me for a long time. It moved me.”