The "tactical superiority" doesn't have to do with who is in charge of managing a team, so the names of some managers being in one league doesn't mean squat.
The problem Italian football faces is that it absolutely abandoned the "tactical" aspect of it because it lagged behind in money and it had to "sell" its product. And it had to create a 'cheaper' product to sell, the quality of players did not really match the league's prestige for a period of time (especially 2013-2017) where we've seen a replacement of tactically astute players of questionable quality coinciding with many useless players that just have three lungs. Of course, this is a catch-22 situation, as the lack of money has forced Italian clubs to start buying lesser talent.
In previous eras, the tactically astute mediocrities (think Gagliardini or Nocerino) were paired with technically astute stars like Roberto Baggio, Francesco Totti, Enrico Chiesa, Roberto Mancini, Alessandro Del Piero, Beppe Signori, Gianfranco Zola before leaving etc from Italians and a bunch of elite foreigners that were usually superstars or world class players, as well as some good enough foreigners.
Given how football has changed and club culture and mentality doesn't mean shit anymore and it's all about what kind of budget you operate and how competent you are in managing it, there's some awkward uniformity between teams and the players constantly switch sides so there's no real identity, while these players barely elevate the level of the clubs they are playing for, but simply rotate jerseys for a season or two.
There's a difference between pairing Nocerino, Ambrosini and Abate with Ibrahimovic, Thiago Silva and and Nesta and pairing them with Taraabt, Poli and De Jong. The difference is that you drop 8 places in the standings.
Still, tactically Serie A is indeed superior to the Premier League. And the Bundesliga. And the Liga. What it lacks is in quality. There is a lot of quality, but it is more concentrated at the top teams and other teams have a few players that could be excellent at better teams but just do not have the chance to be there. Bruno Fernandes for example is hyped as one of the best PL players. He was a player that was regarded as a poor man's Rodrigo De Paul in Serie A (he was playing for Udinese when they started having these crap finishes and then moved to Sampdoria who were also quite crap, and he wasn't even a regular fixture). Mohamed Salah was always a good player but ask any Roma fan and they probably didn't really like him playing vs smaller sides that parked the bus, he was ineffective. And while he scored a lot, he missed a lot more. At Liverpool he has multiple times more attacks and let's face it, an easier time moving forward. Everyone claimed he was Ballon d'Or. So while the quality is diminished in Italy, the same applies elsewhere. The very best talent in the world is concentrated at Bayern, Barcelona, PSG and Real Madrid. Then you have some teams with 3-4 very high quality players where you have Liverpool, Manchester City and Juventus. But after that, it's not really special. There were times where there was far more talent in the world and the concentration of it wasn't even as near. So being tactical mattered a lot more than it does now. It's one thing to face a team that can field a couple of Ballon D'Or contenders that are paired with 10-12 players on the roster that would automatically be starters anywhere else and another to face a situation where all the top teams pair 4-5 top players with a bunch of relatively average ones. You can exploit that. Now if you're lucky the top teams have 1-2 weaknesses and as a mid-tier team you can expect to exploit that once every ten attempts. Tactics do not matter anymore as the rosters are far too disproportionate.
You can still sense this the way teams are set up. It's not like other leagues do not engage with tactics, but you rarely see coaches adapting to a game that changes as much as they do in Italy. We've been unlucky enough that our last four (real) coaches were Mazzarri, Mancini, Spalletti and Conte, who yes, are Italian, but have been extremely stubborn. Only Mancini would throw a setup change but mostly out of desperation.
But the Italian philosophy was never really clever about the attacking phase. It was mostly about letting the 'artists' do their work. The 'artists' have been replaced due to modern football, as there's less players with these qualities these days, and the select few that exist will not seek a situation where they'll fit but rather a monetary one. Think Alexis Sanchez. In truth, creative players tend to be happier in Serie A, provided that they have the coach's backing to enjoy a certain degree of liberty. Eriksen does not have that. Recoba was not lucky during his time at Inter as not many coaches appreciated his talent (but he speaks of Novellino as if he's talking about some deity) and you don't tell a player like Diego Maradona, Roberto Baggio or Ronaldo how to play football. You just tell everyone else to give them the ball.
Guardiola has been successful because he allows this offensive liberty as well. This is unlike the 'Dutch way' which is pretty much passing the ball until you run out of the pitch and end up scoring a goal.
Klopp allows a similar degree of freedom, but he expects some patterns. Mourinho is also like this.
The top Italian coaches such as Capello and Ancelotti also allowed this complete freedom. Trapattoni on the other hand was this way but when he became older he wanted to change his ways and it didn't work out well (see Italy 2004).
And we have Conte, who may allow some offensive players the liberty when they're up front, to a lesser degree that Cuper did or Simeone does but is far more similar in that aspect than to the other coaches. But Conte expects the attack to flow in a specific manner, a very micromanaging one, which is similar to what most Dutch coaches do but in the opposite direction. Creative players are suffocated in such systems and they can only have room if they are highly technical and are too good to be benched. Eden Hazard at Chelsea for example didn't enjoy much freedom with Conte, but he was the best fit for the formation opted and he was also exceptional. Eriksen is a great player, but he doesn't have the 'wow' factor that Hazard has. We also do not employ a system that allows him to play at his highest level. Would he fail if he played in the 3-5-2? Of course not. He'd actually be pretty good, but he wouldn't be a world beater of course. And no, Eriksen does not need the whole team to be built around him, but he sure does need to be in a position to have control of the ball for far longer than most other players.
10 years of FIF
