Under 21, alarm in Serie A: the holders are 0.43%

Matteo Cancellieri, born in 2002, enters Empoli, where he made his debut with a goal in the Under 21 in September, and invents an amazing left-footed shot. Beautiful, the magic of a young Italian, our football has a future. It is an illusion. Just an illusion. The future of our football is increasingly narrow. The alarm of Paolo Nicolato, Under 21 coach, sounds like the warnings of those who have been denouncing the damage of climate change for years. Or, in terms of cinema, those of “Don’t look up”, the film in which scientists warn of the imminent impact of a meteorite on earth and nobody believes them. Until the catastrophic impact. Here, as with scientists, there are data, incontrovertible.

The numbers

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The average of Italian Under 21 players in the Serie A championship is 2.7 boys per team. The percentage of minutes played by Italian Under-21 players on the total minutes of the championship is 4%. Those lined up for each team per match in Serie A is 0.43: that is, not even one per match. Remove Tonali, Raspadori or Ricci, the most present and the most continuous, and the average drops even more. It was said of Cancellieri: another percentage is applied to him and to those like him, that of the Italians Under 21 who enter after the 70 ‘. They are 80%. Among the news of the calls for matches with Montenegro and Bosnia is Edoardo Bove, Roma midfielder: 9 appearances and one goal, for Verona, in Serie A this season. The details of how many minutes he has played in these 9 games? 3 ‘, 1’, 29 ‘, 1’, 1 ‘, 1’, 12 ‘, 1’, 3 ‘. Of the 27 called up, only three players still play in Serie A today, Lovato and Bellanova at Cagliari, Udogie at Udinese. Lately Portanova to Genoa, where however Rovella has lost his place. With good continuity Viti and Parisi at Empoli, who sold Ricci a little in difficulty to earn a place in Turin.

The alarm

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“When the championship goes towards the decisive moments, the first to lose are the boys”, Nicolato rightly denounced. The problem is with him now. It will be more and more of the whole Italian football system. “We started from an Under 21 team that had Serie A players, we will soon look for them in Serie C”, added the coach Who has already started to do so, calling up Candela, Cesena defender. Because even in Serie B – forcibly indicated as the reference league for the Under 21 – the figures are not much better than Serie A: 3.7 Under 21 on average in pink, 7% of minutes played, 0.8 Under 21 owners on average for each team, 65% enter after the 70 ‘. They are numbers, they look like a meteorite.