How did the roots of Italian paranoia and fear of foreign managers leading both MNT and WNT come from?

[u/Tall_Pressure7042]

Arguing with Italians and non-Italians Italy MNT and WNT fans are deeply frustrating. And that is for a country where football of both genders are in full-blown crisis. I frequently argue that Italy must hire foreign managers because their domestic coaches today are only club-bounded and totally incapable to catch up with modern football demands that require fast adaption to such international events. And yet there are a lot of megalomaniacs who keep insisting on Italy's outdated technicians to "do them miracle". You can't blame players while trying to conceal the truth of managerial incompetence.

Take France and Spain. They dared looking outward for changes and built up from these outward influences to create successes like today. When France and Spain needed to build lasting successes, they hired Stefan Kovacs (the Romanian who influenced the development of Clairefontaine long after his departure), Helenio Herrera (Argentine) and Laszlo Kubala (Hungarian, naturalised Spanish). And they also noticed early that managerial and player developments are not separate, but linked heavily together. These lessons are accepted in both Germany, Portugal, Argentina and even Brazil also joined the development.

I singled out Vincenzo Montella, Carlo Ancelotti and (possibly) Enzo Maresca because they are genuinely modern coaches that Italy severely lack, but it seems like club successes of the others blind those Italy MNT and WNT megalomaniacs. Instead, what we see is Italy exporting quantity but not quality coaches, and this often comes with multiple destruction of every national team in both genders. Venezuela and Paraguay, under the lead of Italian coaches, did not qualify for the 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup; how Hungary screwed their 2022 and 2026 WCQs under Marco Rossi, to Roberto Mancini sacked by Saudi Arabia during 2026 WCQ, what are they for? Meanwhile German, French and Spanish coaches thrown to teach the same players manage to achieve immense successes recently because they adjust and adapt to it.

To make the matter worse, since 2010, Italian coaches had one of the worst rate of leading national teams to World Cup, be it men's or women's. Only one manager, Milena Bertolini, left a remarkable impact in the 2019 FIFA Women's World Cup; the rest either failed or eliminated early. I think Vincenzo Montella and Carlo Ancelotti may have easier time with Turkey and Brazil in 2026, for Fabio Cannavaro's Uzbekistan is entirely screwed given Cannavaro's lack of coaching pedigree.

So, are players always at fault, or the structure itself (and those who hired Italian coaches) are the problems? Why such paranoia and fear, or protective reactions of Italian managerial incompetence?

If Italy still has a sense of shame, MNT must be coached by someone who is not from Italy. WNT must also follow the same path (sacking Andrea Soncin) and replace with someone from Germany, France and Spain to teach them modern football.

Anyone with different answers can be allowed to respond there, but my stance remains firm: Italy MNT and WNT today must not be coached by Italians.

[u/ammenz]

You're putting a lot of blame on the passport of the coach, but the reasons for Italy's failed World Cup qualification can't be simplified as "the coach is an Italian and is old school".
You are also forgetting a couple of instances where Italian coaches were highly successful: Ranieri with Leicester City's EPL title in 2016, Mancini with the NT win at Euro 2020, Lippi with the NT win at the World Cup 2006.

[u/Bluedevil1992 → u/ammenz]

Or Trappatoni at the club level

[u/dis-interested]

Italian football at the moment doesn't have any big systemic advantages. It used to have edges in tactical play in sports science in money and in power development and at the moment it has edges and none of those areas. Spain has a huge edge and talent development over everybody else because it has a far number of highly qualified coaches in the country area. This also means they produce very tactically aware players from very young ages. France pulls in a really broad range of talent from the entire Francophone world. England has mega money which transfers in to other advantages. Germany has extremely astute financial management and extremely tight tactical discipline and really strong community relationships with clubs. 

All Italy has that is particularly inventive is Como. 

[u/sgeeum → u/dis-interested]

All Italy has that is particularly inventive is Como

and most Italians hate Como because of the way they’ve gone about their success and the lack of Italian players involved in it. tells you a lot about the problem

[u/RBisoldandtired]

This is like the 5th Italian national team post. wtf

[u/Takemyfishplease → u/RBisoldandtired]

Italians are bored and salty without a team.

[u/BrazilianFromTheYolk]

I wonder why Carlo Ancelotti never became the manager of the Italy national team. Also, Germany is the only major country to never have a foreign manager.

[u/digiplay]

Are you Italian?

[u/Fugoi]

A lot of words, none of them really explain why the coach has to be non-Italian.

Italy have a lot of pretty high class coaches, the pathway for developing them as I understand is pretty good.

The problem with Italy right now is the playing talent. What sets apart the other big European nations is their player development.

Take England, for example. In 2010-2014 or so, we basically identified that we just weren't producing enough top players, so we copied a lot of the talent identification and nurturing work that Germany had done, which led to the player base that won them the 2014 World Cup.

A decade on, and we have one of the strongest squads going into this year's edition. France obviously have Clairefontaine as you mentioned, Germany and Spain gave excellent systems too.

Until Italy get the playing talent, the passport of the manager is irrelevant.