I wish we had this amount of talented young players. But in general, I've always admired the spanish football school, coming from a country whose football culture is totally opposite, I really like to see players who always know how to play the ball and have a lot of quality.
Yes I'm italian. Yes, we had quality, a lot. We were like France today I think, world class players in every position and Serie A was the best league in the world, but I was also talking about football culture. In Italy winning is an obsession, for everyone and in every way. It doesn't matter at all how you do it, if you shoot once in 90 minutes or if you don't have the ball. When we had world class players we managed to do it, now it's becoming to change because you have to try to do something with what you have. In Spain the kids arrive in the first team following a totally different path, in Spain technique is everything, here it's tactics. Our culture has always been to defend perfectly and rely on strong individual players, who win the game by themselves. It's beginning to change because if you don't have world class players, you have to come up with something. We could never, ever produce players like Yamal in Italy, because the youth coaches would say "he's too small physically, too frail, I need a ready-made player who can help me win matches". And for the same reason in Italy is very very rare to see very young players playing in Serie A, because if a coach loses 3 matches in a row here, they fire him. So no one takes a risk. Anyway, we could talk for hours, but I just wanted to say that I have always admired the Spanish football culture and you have a very strong national team, even the youth teams, your U21 is monstrous.
Yes, we have been very blessed for a couple of decades with our youth programs and style in which we play. I have been to the San Siro with my father as we saw Inter play Messina back in the earlier 2000's and your avatar, Mr. Materazzi, actually scored a bicycle kick and Inter won 2-0.
Who do you think has the more impressive trophy cabinet? Spain (1 World Cup & 4 European Championships) or France (2 World Cups & 2 European Championships)
Toilet WC I feel with you. France did go out in the group stage as 4th, right? Of course it's then a "toilet World Cup" (for me it's the same with 2018, 2022) I found the 2010 WC not so bad, Germany with some decent results like the 4-1 against England (with the Lampard goal which didn't count although clearly behind the goalline) in the Last16 and then 4-0 against Messi's Argentina until we had to admit defeat with 0-1 to Spain, which was in its prime then with so much World Class player in one team. Anyway, 3rd place was already a hint what to expect in 2014 (the prime of our team) What was annoying though of this 2010 WC was the Vuvuzelas and the Netherlands in the Final. Never seen before (and after) a dirtier playing Dutch team than this. In the Final we got a record of yellow cards and a sent off of a Dutch player. Spain was the deserved winner of this World Cup Today our U21 beat Spain's U21 with 3-1 in Darmstadt in a friendly (our last friendly before the U21 Euro). Spain is favourite imo although England won the last one. Our team has also some very promising talent in it (today Nick Woltemade from VfB Stuttgart made all 3 Goals) BTT: Spain is for me also favourite in the France vs Spain semi-final in the Nations League in June.
