Xavier Jacobelli spoke during today’s appointment with L’Editoriale on the frequencies of TMW Radio. These are his words:
What match do you expect from Italy tomorrow against Spain?
“If they play like in the first half against Albania, Italy can hurt Spain. I believe that Spalletti’s considerations after the success in the inaugural race are acceptable. There are things to improve, but the performance was positive. Spain will start as favourites, but they are experiencing a metamorphosis after the tiki-taka years, now they are much more vertical and the dangers will come from the outside with Williams and Yamal. A good part of the final result will be played out there.”
Why isn’t a talent like Yamal produced in Italy?
“Let’s start with the facts, we have a national under-17 team that is European champion, a national under-19 team that is European champion, a national under-20 team that is vice-World Champion. This means that we have the talents, I’ll mention one above all like Francesco Camarda who has 500 goals in the Milan youth sector, has just renewed his contract and will play in Serie C with the under 23s. The talents are there, but if there are no coaches with the courage to let young people play like Xavi did with Yamal. It’s useless to fill your mouth and say that there are no talents. The talents are certainly there, despite the enormous quantity of foreigners in Italy. If you don’t find coaches on your path who have the courage to launch you and wait for you then it’s impossible to explode. Next June 30th will be the last day on which clubs will be able to make use of the restriction, registering their young people aged 14 to 19 without risking losing them after just one year. How can a club invest millions of euros in the youth sector if it then loses a young player after only a year?”.
How do you rate these first days of the market in Italy?
“We need to understand how difficult it is for the market to operate at these levels. Just think of the Douglas Luiz deal, a midfielder who Juventus needs like hotcakes. Juventus and Aston Villa have reached an agreement also considering the financial fair play stakes for the English. Iling junior has accepted the transfer, McKennie has not yet and this shows how difficult it is to find all the agreements. These are complications that cannot be resolved with a snap of the fingers, it takes time and it is not easy. The other striking case concerns the agent and Kvara’s father, who is focused on the European Championship but also has to respond to everything that was triggered after the agent and father’s words. Napoli offers a renewal until 2029, but Paris Saint Germain is behind it, offering eight million a year. The market is told through these thousand facets.”
Is Koopmeiners-Juve a feasible operation?
“This is a chess match in which Atalanta relies on the time factor. He has no need to give up, especially a player of Koopmeiners’ caliber who still has three years left on his contract. Atalanta is in an advantageous position, now we are talking about the evaluation of the card and in Bergamo they demonstrated that they do not accept technical compensations as happened with United for Hojlund. There is no rush, now Juve is focused on Douglas Luiz and we are still only on June 19th.”
Which champions can leave our Serie A?
“I don’t think Kvaratskhelia, De Laurentiis was quite intransigent on this point. We are not talking about Osimhen at Napoli, the 120 million clause is discouraging suitors and this is a chapter to follow, as is that of Di Lorenzo. They are players bound by multi-year, multi-million dollar contracts. Leao didn’t convince me yesterday, he has to take advantage of the showcase of such an important event. There is a heavy Arab offer, we need to understand if Milan and Fonseca are willing to sell such a player. We will then need to find an important alternative. Chiesa could be the excellent transfer to make ends meet at Juventus, then I personally would never sell Chiesa”.
