Catenaccio N/A

Conte asks, Tavecchio responds. As I pondered in a piece on December 23 , Conte’s “furiousness” about the scheduled end of 2015-16 Serie A (May 22, 2016) is responded in turn by Tavecchio: “A European tournament cannot be prepared in 18 days. The average is 28.8 days. I will personally request an earlier end to the season” , he told Milanese daily Corriere della Sera . Such a request may become moot for future tournaments, should Tavecchio’s “mother of all reforms” be passed. In fact, the FIGC president wants to finalize a decision to contract Serie A to 18 teams and Serie B to 20 by June 30, 2015. The change would take effect as of the 2016-17 season. The additional time that a 34-game tournament would afford could be used for the cementing of the national team group of players through minicamps – which the FIGC would prefer – or for players to rest and recuperate their energy – ostensively, the clubs preference. One solution only sets up another fight between nation...

Italian national team coach Antonio Conte is reportedly furious about the lack of time that he will have at the end of 2015-16 to prepare the azzurri for the upcoming Euros. Serie A is slated to end on May 22, 2016 which is a week after the Bundesliga and La Liga, and two weeks after the English Premier League. This only exacerbates the friction between clubs and the national team that’s brewing as a result of the proposed minicamps the first of which is to take place a week prior to the resumption of UEFA club competitions. FIGC president Carlo Tavecchio supports Conte on the minicamps but has amended his position stating that it will be up to the clubs to allow their players to attend the minicamps since the clubs are not obliged to lend their players to the national team because the minicamps are outside the dates imposed by FIFA for national team activity. One can empathize with Conte’s position, which might go something like: “I have a group that is in an embryonic sta...