Everyone waited Erling Braut Haaland and it wasn’t his match. Neither the first leg nor the return: Manchester City have succeeded in the incredible mission to stop the Terminator Norwegian, the most anticipated footballer and who turned out to be human. It had never happened to him since he played in Europe. It suggests that even Stones knows how to mark in the end. It wasn’t his night, but 2000 in Leeds will have plenty of time to redeem itself, assuming it really has to. On the other hand, the comparison between the Citizens di Guardiola and Borussia Dortmund, however, represented yet another showcase for the better youth of continental football. Two talents already well known in the football news have shone. United by nationality, both English. And from the very green age, even if one is from 2000 and the other from 2003.
Phil Foden e Jude Bellingham. Beware of those two, the rest was already known. The first scored the decisive goal, the second the opening one that kept BVB’s hopes alive. He remade with the interests of the injustice suffered by the Etihad, even if in the end the Gialloneri had to capitulate. Phil and Jude, protagonists of the future of that England that dreams of bringing back the football back home. Indeed today of a movement that, perhaps inspired by the presence of Pep across the Channel, shows us what football can be. And it raises several questions. They are players who look like prototypes.
They have no real role. Where do you put them on the pitch? It is the first question that comes to mind when watching them play. Lots of offensive talent, but they can fill all midfield roles. Pure attack, who knows the defense. They do not have a precise location, they escape the schemes. They are 10 and 8, but also 4. Especially good Jude. It is a question that had already arisen, also in England, when Lampard launched a very young Mason Mount, another diamond no longer so rough than football in the UK, so aware of all this that he declared he did not know what his role was and the end does not matter. Players like Foden and Bellingham are special but they are not unique cases in Europe: they represent the evolution of this sport. Less tied to tactics and schemes, more to the quality of the direct protagonists. “Football belongs to the players,” says Guardiola after having taken a serious thought. It is a concept that Allegri expressed a short time ago in Italy, but we are too interested in dividing the players and the results, without realizing that the ball has already gone beyond this rigidity and that it is a question of technical value. Then there is the age factor.
A 2000 and a 2003. What space would they have in Italy? Best players in a Champions League quarter-final. They look like Martian chronicles, seen from the Bel Paese. In our league, the only footballer of 2000 to have passed the 1,800-minute barrier (i.e. two thirds of the championship) is Dusan Vlahovic. Play in Fiorentina, fifteenth in the standings. We don’t even talk about 2003. Perhaps Bellingham is an exception, but in Serie A the only player of that year to have played is Daan Dierckx. 90 minutes with Parma penultimate. It is not xenophilia, the goal is not to emphasize that out there everything works well and here everything is bad. There are millions of things wrong with football beyond the Alps. The point is that in Italy we consider almost beardless Federico Chiesa O Nicolò Barella, both of ’97. Seven players younger than them took the field yesterday at Signal Iduna Park. There is talk, it should be redundant, of a Champions League quarter-final. The point is that in Italy we focus on trifles and cages overcome by the evolution of the game. An emblematic example at Juve, where from the beginning of the season there is discussion about what the role of Dejan Kulusevski, born in 2000. And they are not satisfied with what they do because they are unable to regulate it. Probably Foden and Bellingham would not find space in Serie A. But not because they are not talented enough. Why do you have to make the bones. Because they have to find a role. The trouble is, we run the risk of being damned behind.
– .
