Former AC Milan and Real Madrid head coach Fabio Capello feels that Italian football must take a step forward tactically if it is to compete in club and international football.
Writing in a column in today’s print edition of Rome-based newspaper Il Messaggero, the coach suggested Liverpool head coach Jurgen Klopp as a model for the kind of footballing tactics which the Italian game must look to.
Italy’s 1-0 defeat at the hands of North Macedonia condemned the Azzurri to a second consecutive World Cup without qualification, and raised doubts that their win at the Euros last summer was a one-off.
Moreover, in club football, not one Italian team has managed to make it to the quarter-finals of Europe’s top club competition the Champions League for the second season in a row.
Inter went out to Liverpool, widely regarded as one of the continent’s best teams, and Capello feels that Reds coach Klopp is someone who must be a guide.
“We stopped developing fifteen years ago,” he said, “at Guardiola’s football with Barcelona. In the meantime Guardiola has evolved and coaches a different style of football today.”
“I’d say that we have to look to Germany and Klopp,” he went on. “Winning back the ball and quick counterattacks.”
“I think that is the model to follow,” he added. “Spain are unique – they have extraordinary individual technique, which is unthinkable for us today.”
