Italian School, Maresca confirms the golden tradition of our technicians

Italians do it better. Certainly on the football benches, where our coaches are confirmed as the most successful and most sought after by foreign clubs to obtain results. In the summer in which the totem Carlo Ancelotti became the first foreign coach to lead Brazil and the former Inter player Simone Inzaghi was hired by the Saudis of Al-Halil with a two-year contract worth 52 million euros, only Simeone at Atletico Madrid earns more than him, Enzo Maresca's qualification for the semi-finals of the Club World Cup stands out. The 45-year-old Chelsea coach has already won the last Conference League, but now he is aiming for the biggest target after eliminating the Brazilians of Palmeiras in the quarter-finals: in his path there will be another green and gold team, Fluminense on Tuesday in New York, but now he can make history in the first edition of this tournament. It would be further proof of the quality of the Italian school, even if Maresca in our championships was little more than a flash in the pan: after studying at Coverciano, the most prestigious and formative football university in the world, the former Juventus midfielder had his chance in 2021 with Parma in Serie B, but lasted only 13 games. So he took a step back, working in Guardiola's Manchester City (to the point of becoming almost a Pep lookalike even in appearance) and then took flight with Leicester, bringing back to the Premier the team that Ranieri made immortal in 2016 with the conquest of the Premier.

Maresca is not the only Italian to make his fortune abroad after a difficult journey in our country . In Marseille there is De Zerbi who dreams big, but his last bench in Serie A dates back to 2021 in Sassuolo, while Montella has been away for 6 years and in Turkey he found Eldorado as a coach. Porto, on the other hand, relies on Francesco Farioli (ex Ajax) to relaunch themselves and in Spain Osasuna has chosen Alessio Lisci: they are 36 and 39 years old respectively, but they have never seen each other in our country. Small distortions of a school that constantly churns out coaches capable of imposing themselves everywhere, given that in the last 15 years 9 Italian coaches have won 23 titles in the five main European leagues (Serie A, Premier, Liga, Bundesliga and Ligue 1). So they did better than their Spanish colleagues, who are chasing with 21 despite the Guardiola effect (11 successes between Spain, Germany and England), and also than the French and Germans who are stuck at 10.

Since 2009/10, only the tricolor has flown in all five of the most important tournaments: thanks to Ancelotti who was able to assert himself with Chelsea, PSG, Bayern Munich and Real Madrid after having previously won with Milan, while in Serie A no foreigner has passed since Mourinho's time in the Inter of the Treble. An absolute and unprecedented domination, with Allegri and Conte taking the lion's share with 6 and 5 scudetti won in these years. Now they will return to challenge each other: the first starts again from Milan, with whom he won the tricolor in 2010/11, while the second defends the title won with Napoli after becoming the first ever to win Serie A with three different teams. Curiously, Conte is the only one to have been confirmed in the elite teams, while he will have to face the onslaught of foreigners: Inter, Atalanta and Juventus, who came in behind his Napoli, have relied on the Romanian Chivu and the Croatians Juric and Tudor. The defense of Made in Italy starts again from here.