100 Goals for Christmas; No, Don’t Recall Him.

February 5th, 2011 | by: Julian | Comments Off

Toto Di Natale did something today that is quite rare and difficult to do: he scored 100 goals in Serie A. Some may argue that he deserves an Italy recall. I’d argue that this would be a massive waste of time.

Undoubtably, it’s a very nice goal. Udinese’s captain is a fine player for his club and has proven to be absolutely vital to them.

But he shouldn’t be recalled to Italy. The past 4 years Italy have been quite awful primarily due to aging. It was a lack of knowing when to cut certain players that cost Lippi his second tenure. Had Marcello Lippi not dragged deadweight like Zambrotta, Cannavaro, and Gattuso to the World Cup in 2010, at the very least, youth would have been able to gain experience on the world’s stage for the next tournament. Instead, however, he relied on the tried and trusted instead of gambling on the young and risky. Italy lost.

Cesare Prandelli would risk undoing all the work he has done thus far in rejuvenating Italy. His meritocracy may require that Di Natale be called up, but in this case, he may be better off going against his own policy. An aging 33 year old who rarely impressed on gli azzurri would merely take the place of another youth product who needs to gain experience on the national team. The Azzurri meets infrequently as it is- a mere 8 times this year- and the players need every opportunity to play together and build something that lasts. Cesare needs to build a team for the future- 2012 at the earliest, and then 2014 as a later target- and Di Natale simply cannot be included in that.

Spain left out red hot Raul before Euro 2008 and never looked back since. To reclaim the success that they’ve recently had, Italy would do wise to take a page out of that book.

In the meantime, Di Natale deserves all the praise in the world for his exploits at Udinese. But for the sake of Italy, I hope it remains only at the club level.

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