via TuttoMercatoWeb<\/a>.<\/p>\n\u201cFootball here is very important, and what happened yesterday has hit me hard. We must take stock of the problem and work to address it, understanding that our young players are extremely important.\u201d<\/p>\n
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LONDON, ENGLAND \u2013 OCTOBER 17: Gianfranco Zola reacts prior to the UEFA EURO 2024 European qualifier match between England and Italy at Wembley Stadium on October 17, 2023 in London, England. (Photo by Richard Heathcote\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n
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Zola: \u2018Italy must start again from the ground up\u2019<\/p>\n
Zola was clear that the solutions need to come from the bottom of the game upward rather than from any quick fix at international level.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe must start from the ground up and think about recreating the conditions to give quality to our young players,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is a very important and far-reaching piece of work to be done.\u201d He also highlighted the need for continuity in young players\u2019 development, arguing that talented youngsters must be given consistent opportunities to compete rather than being sidelined at club level.<\/p>\n
As Lega Pro vice-president, Zola has a direct stake in that process, and he was keen to emphasise that the third tier of Italian football has a meaningful role to play.<\/p>\n
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\u201cWe as Lega Pro continue to work to encourage clubs to invest more and more in growing our young players in the best possible way,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He concluded with a message aimed squarely at the next generation.<\/p>\n
\u201cCoaches and facilities are fundamental, but the players themselves will also need to work hard. Commitment, vocation and dedication are what it takes to become true sportspeople.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gianfranco Zola has called for a fundamental rethink of how Italian football develops its young players, insisting the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2343,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[155,156,1013,5,1950,1949],"class_list":{"0":"post-2342","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-italy","8":"tag-chelsea","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-italian-football","11":"tag-italy","12":"tag-lega-pro","13":"tag-zola"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2342","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2342"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2342\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2343"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}