Legendary Italian defender Fabio Cannavaro believes that the Azzurri need to work on their defence in the box and thinks more youngsters should be taught as he was.
Italy drew 2-2 in their match with Denmark on Friday, with both of their opponents’ goals coming from inside the box, and the 40-year-old blames it on the way players are taught nowadays.
Cannavaro spoke to Radio Deejay about his training philosophies and praised Serie A leaders Roma for their ability to successfully defend with their whole squad, as they’ve scored 20 goals while only conceding one so far.
“In my days we played in the streets and would touch the ball a thousand or two thousand times a day,” said the Ballon d’Or winning former Italy captain, who also won the World Cup with the Azzurri in 2006.
“Now they lack that sense memory with the ball. They play for an hour at football school and that’s it. We try to teach children tactics at that age, but that can be learned about later, whereas getting a feel for the ball and how to move it has to develop when they are still young.
“I listened to the ideas put forward at Coverciano, but I speak from years of experience. For example, last night in Denmark 2-2 Italy Federico Balzaretti should have been able to stop Nicklas Bendtner jumping so freely. You need to mark in the box, there’s no other way around it.
“Today you have to defend with 11 men and Roma are the team who are doing that best at the moment. As Ciro Ferrara used to say, you’ve got to follow the striker even when he goes to the toilet.”
