Apolloni: "Italy has lost its identity, we need to build and no one knows how to score anymore"
Luigi Apolloni, former Parma defender, criticizes the loss of identity in Italian football, highlighting the importance of marking and the defensive phase.
“Italy has lost its identity.” Luigi Apolloni, former defender of Parma and the Italian National Team - with whom he participated in the 1994 World Cup - had this to say on the Extratime program on Rai Radio 1: "We grew up with Gentile's firm marking of Maradona in '82: he nullified the star with his ability to not let him breathe. It was a different football, but that attention has been lost. Today, players focus more on construction, even if we see incredible technical errors who deliver goals to opponents. We lost our identity.” For Apolloni, this is one of the reasons for Italy's absence in the last three editions of the World Cup: "Italian teams were strong in teaching individual marking, even when playing in a zone, this does not mean not marking the man: I still take the player who arrives in my zone of competence. This philosophy is missing, as now more emphasis is placed on construction and less on the defensive phase, which used to be the basis of our victories.
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