Classic stuff from the Gazzetta dello Sport, which laments the death of Italian culture AND dramatically quotes Nietzsche – all because, for the first time in its history, Serie A now has more foreign players than Italian ones.
A little over 51% of the players who've started this season in Italian top flight were born outside of the peninsula, a dramatic increase from 30% in 2004.
Italians don't get a look in anymore, moans the paper, unlike the days when Serie A was the best league in the world and foreign numbers were limited.
This is in contrast to the Premier League, says la Gazzetta, where the "foreign stars are added to a robust British chassis". Well that's all well-and-good, except for the fact that it's complete bullshit. In 2010-2011, only 35% of the players who started in Premier League games were English. And while 223 shameless, money-grabbing, job-stealing millionaires have started in Serie A's first 10 games this season, according to the its official website "There are currently over 337 foreign players registered and eligible to play in the Barclays Premier League." How many over 337, it doesn't say – but you get the drift.
Even the paper points to flaws in its own logic, making the obvious statement that these imports mostly compete with Italians for their positions, saying: "Se Pazzini gioca, va in panchina Milito. Se Cassano gioca, va in panchina Pato. Se Matri gioca, va in panchina Vucinic" – "if Pazzini plays, Milito's on the bench. If Cassano plays, Pato's on the bench. If Matri plays ... blah blah".
It is true that, if left unchecked, this situation may hamper the development of Italian players in the future, but a higher proportion of foreign talent may be what's needed to drive Serie A back to the very highest standard. Who would say, for example, that La Liga in Spain is a better quality league than the English Premier? Sure, it has two dazzling super-teams, but even the third-wheel Valencia are nowhere near Barca or Real, and after the third placed Los Che, the league's quality takes a nose dive. In Spain, they claim 70% of the players are Spanish, compared to the English 35% in the Premier League.
Some would say that this stat proves that more foreign players hurts national teams, but that arguement is extremely syllogistic; for example, will Cesare Prandelli's current crop do any worse at the Euros than Giovanni Trapattoni's Italy's squad (when only 30% of Serie A's players were foreign)? And has a rise in foreign registrations in the Bundesliga done any harm to the German national side?
Obviously, no article on the state of a football league would be complete without a quote from a 19th century philosopher, and the pink paper finishes with this: "L’unica risposta possibile costringe alla classica citazione da Nietzsche, ciò che non ti uccide ti rende più forte"/"the only response to this problem is the classic quote from Nietzsche: what doesn't kill you makes you stronger."
So be warned. A new crop of nihilistic, superhuman Italians are coming. Maybe.
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