Italian media football-italia reported that former Guangzhou Evergrande and Chinese coach Lippi said when talking about Italian football that he would not discuss the so-called Italian football crisis. But for the current Italian squad, Lippi also lamented that players like Totti Piero and Montella are gone.
Screenshot of the football-italia report
At the 2006 World Cup, Lippi led Italy to its fourth championship trophy in history. However, in the 2010 World Cup, Lippi led italy, which had a noticeably aging squad, to be eliminated in the group stage. Subsequently, Lippi came to China to coach, first leading Guangzhou Evergrande to win the AFC Champions League, and then leading the Chinese national team to almost reach the Asian play-offs in the 2018 World Preliminary Tournament. However, when coaching the Chinese team for the second time, because of dissatisfaction with the performance of the Chinese players, Lippi announced his resignation on the spot after losing 1-2 to Syria.
This time in the Qatar World Cup European qualifiers, Italy lost 1-0 at home to North Macedonia in the play-offs, missing the World Cup for two consecutive times. Asked what he thought of Italy's defeat, Lippi replied: "I will not discuss the so-called crisis of Italian football, because it seems to be a momentary thing. ”
"Serie A teams can play in the Champions League at a very high level, but as far as the national team is concerned, it is a different story. If you lose even North Macedonia, it's certainly not a good outcome. We are European Champions and remain unbeaten in the group stage for a long time. But I want to remind everyone that when I was still coaching, 65% of Serie A players were Italians, now only 30-35%. Players like Totti, Piero and Montella don't exist anymore. Lippi said.
Commenting on Mancini's continued coaching of the Italian team, Lippi commented: "Apart from the loss to North Macedonia, Mancini has done a good job. If anyone knows italian football, it's him. I think he is right to continue coaching and now we in Italy have to keep looking ahead. ”