Mancini: “Only players born in Italy should be in the National team.”

Inter coach Roberto Mancini’s short answer to a question regarding naturalized players in the Italian National team have sparked a debate in Italy:

“There should only be players born in Italy in the National team,” said Mancini. Angelo Benedicto Sormani who was born in Brazil but played seven games and scored two goals for Italy spoke to Tuttomercatoweb.com about the matter.

“It is a fairly sensitive topic in the public opinion. I for one think that whoever is an Italian citizen in rights and obligations should also have the right to be called up to the National team. Maybe another topic should be that today you become Italian much more easily then in my day. Just think that in my day marrying an Italian woman who was already a citizen was not enough to become one yourself. You needed a certificate of descendants of five generations back. Now there are other rules, also due to the fact that people travel freely in the EU for work.”

Source: Tuttomercatoweb.com