If our primavera are good enough why will they stay in Seria C when we have a terrible track record off keeping lots of players.
I'm hopeful but not pinning our future on an as yet unproven project like others.
Sorry people... The pivoting and discussion over Simic is interesting as he's surely the sort of guy you'd want in Futuro playing regularly and getting chances with the A Team, but that seems to be causing division on all levels.
I'm just watching on with interest.
We have lots of plates spinning, the main one is the starting 11... I'd rather focus on that primarily.
It's because the transition from youth to first team football is jarring.
Here is the latest training video from Milan Futuro, our young players, fast forward to around the 40 second mark, and you will see them 1v1 and then 2v2 drills, etc.
And then compare training with the first team, 1v1, from a few days ago (starts around 2 minutes in):
Look at their touch. The kids, they take too many touches, their decisions are slower, they keep improvising, but all those cuts, all that fluff gets cut out once you go up against a better defender. Our first teamers, their choices are faster, shots are harder. You'll see the defenders are the ones who do the worst in the 1v1's (when attacking) they aren't attackers though, and you can see the difference in physicality, in speed, strength, etc.
Simic is an undersized CB, maybe he can overcome that? But he wants to play first team football. Okay, let's see what he does.
But the reason Serie C is such an important step is that, our players are going to be playing against grown ass men in Serie C. In the UEFA Youth League, we were playing kids around the same age as our kids, and our boys did great, two years in a row. But even in the primavera, you are allowed more leeway on the ages, but even then, it's still not enough to make sure can make that next jump.
In Serie C, they'll be playing against men, in their 20's, many in their 30's, are they super talents? No, but it's a much easier jump for youth players who are 16-19 to make that next jump, because there is a chasm between Primavera (youth) and First Team. Serie C provides a much easier transition for those players.
Yes, there are kids who do make it, and yes, there's Donna and Yamal etc etc, but there are also kids like Calabria, who get through. Calabria is a useful player, and I think that Serie C gives you a
better chance of having more Calabria-level players on your team, which helps out your squad, but also, it's better for the players, and, of course, it helps that you can sell them for a profit which helps your club.
The club is already putting money into its youth team, regardless of whether there is a U23 team or not. You're already putting in millions into the youth system. You can abolish the youth system like Brentford, fine, but you're still going to have acquisition costs to get players, regardless. If you believe in youth, and I do, then you might as well put in the extra money to make sure you can extract even more value from the youth system--these are the elements that make a club... a club, an institution, rather than just a sporting franchise.
Clubs are where your kids learn to play, where they make friends, and many sporting clubs house other sports, like basketball, swimming, etc--but you know that--so there's a community aspect to it, that you can cynically say is a way to indoctrinate future fans, etc, but it's also about community, which our society sorely lacks, but that's another discussion.
So we have this talented class that came up with Abate: Camarda, Zeroli, Sia, Bartesaghi, etc. Let's say there are 6-7 talents there, with the U23,
maybe instead of only having one develop, maybe it becomes two or three? Maybe more? Maybe we get lucky?
I'm not a fan of Redbird, but I give them their due. The stadium and this U23 team are big deals. Juventus and Atalanta have both taken advantage of using it, meanwhile Bayern, Barca, Real, the entire English reserve system, has helped them churn out more talents because of it--Italy is behind here and it is huge for our club.
