Del Piero cites Barcelona as he explains Italy’s ‘tired’ problem
Juventus and Italy legend Alessandro Del Piero argues that Italian clubs are always ‘tired’, but should complain less about the fixture list and focus more on the pitch.
Serie A has no more representatives in the Champions League following Atalanta’s elimination from the Round of 16 at the hands of Bayern Munich.
Del Piero: Italian clubs ‘always’ tired
La Dea suffered a 10-2 aggregate loss against the Bundesliga giants while Napoli, Inter and Juventus had been knocked out in the previous rounds.
“Our problem is that we get tired. We are always the ones who are tired. In Italy, we are always tired,” Del Piero told Sky Sport via Fanpage.
“I’ve heard very few coaches abroad complain about matches or say we are tired. You have to adapt. We are talking about teams; you have to equip yourself accordingly.
“Today’s football is different. You have more players, more substitutions, more money to invest in physical preparation, recovery and so on. There’s more of everything.”
The last time an Italian club won the Champions League was in 2009-10 with José Mourinho’s Inter.
Since then, Juventus and Inter have reached the Final twice each, but failed to bring home the coveted cup.
“You need professionalism in trying to improve the players, because there is room for improvement. There is, because others do so,” Del Piero continued.
“We think we are the best, yet we concede seven goals, as it happened; then something isn’t quite right. Barcelona always play the same players. Then if someone gets injured, they take him out and put another one in.”
Del Piero won the Champions League with Juventus in 1996 and the World Cup with the Italy national team ten years later in 2006.
The Italian national team will play in the World Cup play-off later this month after failing to qualify for the competition in 2018 and 2022.