The old friendship remains, as does the common Milanism, but on Italian football Paolo Maldini and Filippo Galli end up in very distant positions. The former Rossoneri captain, in an interview with Corriere della Sera, also pointed the finger at the way young players are trained: “Technically we are a country that no longer produces talented players. Something is not working at a systemic level. My children saw it in the youth teams of Milan, it’s all about tactics. If a boy has talent, it’s a problem.”
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Words to which Galli, for years head of the Rossoneri youth sector, decided to respond with a post on his blog. The tone is respectful, but the content very clear: “I was Head of the AC Milan Youth Sector from 2009 to 2018. Those statements, therefore, concern me directly,” writes Galli, claiming the work done in those years. According to the former defender, the approach was far from focused on tactics and results: “We built an approach far from the exaggerated pursuit of results, based on the idea of proactive football that put each boy in the conditions to be the main protagonist of his own training path.” And above all, he clarifies, “no one has ever forbidden any player to dribble past an opponent: quite the opposite.”
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The central point of his reply concerns precisely the relationship between technique and tactics: “Technique resides in tactics,” Galli argues, explaining that it is the reading of game situations that allows the player to choose the most effective move. The real problem, he adds, would therefore not be tactical work itself, but the “tacticism” that can take over in youth sectors when the goal becomes winning immediately.
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And here comes one of the harshest phrases: “The problem of technique in Italy is not the wall but, rather, the courtyard.” For Galli, what is especially needed are those thousands of hours of free play that used to be done on the street, in parks and courtyards, even before organized training. A principle that, he assures, was also present in the Rossoneri youth academy: “We never traded our idea of formative football for immediate results.”
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Galli then enters the case of Daniel Maldini, who went through that very youth sector. He defines him a “late bloomer“, physically less developed compared to his peers, but recalls how Milan chose to wait for him and let him play continuously. Up to the Under 16 final won against Roma, with Daniel among the protagonists. Finally, the most direct jab at Paolo: “You cannot talk about the training of young players without ever having gone through, from inside, the daily work that training requires.” A response that sparked debate among fans and brought back to the center a broader question: how are the talents of Italian football really formed?
