Former Italy international Antonio Cassano believes that there isn’t enough quality in Italian football to adapt to Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola’s tactics.
Guardiola has arguably defined a generation of football with his implementation of the ‘tiki-taka’ style of play that has seen him become one of the most talented managers in the global game.
Unrivalled success at Barcelona then saw the Spaniard move to Bayern Munich, before heading to the blue half of Manchester, where he has continued his succession of trophies and competition wins across three of football’s biggest leagues.
However, Guardiola is yet to taste the football allure that is the Italian Serie A.
Former AS Roma and Italy forward Cassano believes that he should stay well clear of Italy, with the league’s standard well below where it needs to be in order to adapt to the rich style of football deployed by Guardiola.
Speaking to reporters (via Football Italia), Cassano said: “In 1999, for example, when I started playing professional football, there were players like Pirlo, [Francesco] Cozza and [Roberto] Baronio at Reggina, who were fighting to stay up.
“What has changed since then? Everything comes in cycles. At that time Italian football was made of many No 10s like Baggio, Totti, Del Piero and I, plus there were lots of good defenders.
“In 2006 we won a World Cup by playing long balls to [Luca] Toni. Now ‘guardiolismo’ reigns [referring to Pep Guardiola], but there’s only one Guardiola in the world.
“There isn’t enough quality in Italian football to adopt his philosophy. When I say that the level of Serie A is low, I don’t want to sound snobbish. I’m just using my time as a benchmark.”
He also added that Inter Milan striker Mauro Icardi would not be considered first-team material had he been plying his trade 20 years previous.
“If Icardi had been at Inter, would he have played in front of Ronaldo and Vieri?”
Who is Guardiola and Man City’s next victim?
Following on from their record-breaking Premier League title win last season, Guardiola’s Man City side have made another blistering start to the new season.
The Citizens sit joint-top of the Premier League table with 26 points from 10 games, having scored 27 goals and only conceding three.
Man City face Fulham in the League Cup on Thursday in their next game.
The post There’s not enough quality in Italian football to adopt Pep Guardiola’s tactics, says Cassano appeared first on Squawka News.
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