Sebastiano Esposito

[Gaindé]

He didn't play much but he had an OK cameo against Dortmund as well, the rest of the games he had like 5-10 minutes tops. While sometimes we were winning like 3 or 4-0 and we played Sensi as SS instead of him. I think there were rumours that we didn't want to use him due to contractual negociations or stuff like that back then but I don't remember everything.

About your last point we could reverse it and think that maybe we haven't seen a lot of players emerge due to operating the same way.

 

[.h.]

He didn't play much but he had an OK cameo against Dortmund as well, the rest of the games he had like 5-10 minutes tops. While sometimes we were winning like 3 or 4-0 and we played Sensi as SS instead of him. I think there were rumours that we didn't want to use him due to contractual negociations or stuff like that back then but I don't remember everything.

About your last point we could reverse it and think that maybe we haven't seen a lot of players emerge due to operating the same way.

Is the way we operate THAT different to Milan or Juve prior to their u23s though? They've emerged more players, I'll admit that, but id say they've also produced more players at higher levels than us, using the same development models.

I honestly can't really explain it, maybe we filter for the wrong attributes into the academy.

 

[Il Drago]

Bastonis price tag was inflated because of plusvalenza, the fair value was more like 13m which is still high for a player of his age and exposure, but for example, not so far off what we paid for Salcedo, Colidio, or what was rumoured for Espositos value at one point.

I am happy you mention Bastoni because he's a prime example of everything that is wrong with Italian mentality regarding youngsters.

I think we can all agree Bastoni is a generational talent. So how was he treated by Italian clubs at the early stages of his career?

Inter signed him at the age of 18 and left him at Atalanta on a two-year loan. In his first season he barely played. Obviously because Atalanta saw no use of giving playing time to someone they don't even own. 4 league appearances and 87 minutes (most of them came in the last match of the season). Inter realised situation is horrible for his development, they cut his loan short and sent him to Parma on loan. Situation was better there (18 starts)) but he still had to see himself getting benched at times by fucking Gagliolo. One year later, the guy who wasn't deemed good enough to be a regular starter for Parma was starting games for Inter. And we have to thank Conte for it.

In conclusion, someone with Bastoni's talent had to wait till 19 to get serious playing time against pros. That's where the problem with player development starts in Italy. While in other countries players start getting professional minutes at 17 in Italy they're mostly treated as kids till they're 20.

 

[thatdude]

I am happy you mention Bastoni because he's a prime example of everything that is wrong with Italian mentality regarding youngsters.

I think we can all agree Bastoni is a generational talent. So how was he treated by Italian clubs at the early stages of his career?

Inter signed him at the age of 18 and left him at Atalanta on a two-year loan. In his first season he barely played. Obviously because Atalanta saw no use of giving playing time to someone they don't even own. 4 league appearances and 87 minutes (most of them came in the last match of the season). Inter realised situation is horrible for his development, they cut his loan short and sent him to Parma on loan. Situation was better there (18 starts)) but he still had to see himself getting benched at times by fucking Gagliolo. One year later, the guy who wasn't deemed good enough to be a regular starter for Parma was starting games for Inter. And we have to thank Conte for it.

In conclusion, someone with Bastoni's talent had to wait till 19 to get serious playing time against pros. That's where the problem with player development starts in Italy. While in other countries players start getting professional minutes at 17 in Italy they're mostly treated as kids till they're 20.

Spot on, we mention that only Zaniolo, Gnonto and DiGregorio from our youth teams have turned into decent players. However, is that because they are really the only talented players we've developed or because they were the ones lucky enough to get proper development?

Gnonto went to a club that wasn't afraid to make him a starter at 18. He then got a move to the EPL and continued his good form as an 18-19 year old. Zaniolo would never have been developed if he stayed with Inter. He was already 19 with no senior appearances when he transferred to Roma. Luckily Di Francesco was there and wasn't afraid to play youngsters. He was trash for about 6 months then adjusted and won Young Player of the year.

Player development isn't simple. Players need talent AND opportunities. Preferably at top level. Even more preferably in a stable environment with good system. Kind of like the hierarchy of needs. In Italy players development gets cut off at the root before they even have a chance to grow.

 

[.h.]

Bastoni is kinda exactly the example though no? Development is non linear. He had a shitty situation. Inter was monitoring it, pulled him into another club, and he seized he opportunity, then he got evaluated in preseason by a manager who is not exactly famous for youth development, and he was assessed as being worth a chance.

I guarantee you that same preseason we would have been making judgements another a dozen other kids on the cusp of he first team such as Pinamonti, radu, do Gregorio, emmers, gravillion, etc.


The only real objectively regretted loss imho of the last 15 years is bonucci, and he's a great example. Aged 20 he was playing Serie B. Not Serie A. Not even a regular starter in his second season at Treviso, moved to Pisa, takes ANOTHER step up to serie A aged 22, and the rest is history.

Consistent development and taking steps up is the key to success.

That's why I say one, maybe two bad loans - no big deal but you gotta start delivering some shit. After that, we should cut our losses.


I would say though for sure we need to be better about selection of clubs our players develop at, as a blanket statement the loan is a failure unless they're getting like 30+ starts in the season, and we need to increase he pressure on ourselves to make sure these guys keep stepping up their game.

I would also agree that Italy as a whole needs to be better about tryig youth - in general kt suffers from the boomer workforce the wider commercial world suffers from, esp when you have limited squads/opportunities. But more specific to Inter, I suspect the real answer is we focus on the wrong attributes on players coming into the youth team. Wasn't Franco Baresi rejected for being too small when he was aged 12 or something? It feels like we focus too much on players who are winning matches etc at their current age group and not where they could end up going. If course the latter is a way more ethereal quality and I don't know how the duck you measure it, perhaps technical talent rather than win rates or something, but the lack of success of youth from inter even from the guys who leave this development system when young says a lot imho.

 

[.h.]

Spot on, we mention that only Zaniolo, Gnonto and DiGregorio from our youth teams have turned into decent players. However, is that because they are really the only talented players we've developed or because they were the ones lucky enough to get proper development?

Gnonto went to a club that wasn't afraid to make him a starter at 18. He then got a move to the EPL and continued his good form as an 18-19 year old. Zaniolo would never have been developed if he stayed with Inter. He was already 19 with no senior appearances when he transferred to Roma. Luckily Di Francesco was there and wasn't afraid to play youngsters. He was trash for about 6 months then adjusted and won Young Player of the year.

Player development isn't simple. Players need talent AND opportunities. Preferably at top level. Even more preferably in a stable environment with good system. Kind of like the hierarchy of needs. In Italy players development gets cut off at the root before they even have a chance to grow.

So I agree, but my point is, our loan system is trying to give these guys opportunities. We've definitely made some poor loan selections, but also, the players need to take the opportunities in front of them too. If you don't have the talent to seize the opportunity at a Serie B club, you're not going to make it at Inter tbh.

I will stress again that the U23 system, which I'm very disappointed we didn't join at the same time as Juve (I understand why we didn't but I think we should have moved heaven and hell to do it) should further help though

 

[#NotForMe]

TBH nothing against D'ambro and Darmian, but how hard is it to train up a kid to just that level? Like to get the kid to become a world beater might be hard, but a strong solider (jacks of all trades) that gets the tactics right, but nothing extremely outstanding in flashy skills or physical stuffs should be achievable without hindering results right? Quite sure Fontanarosa can become something like that easily.

I am not saying all youngsters can be developed as so, like Yann Karamoh, I don't see him a good utility player; and not all position we can afford to play someone that has too much direct impact to the game, like our #9 position, but if we cannot even develop some youngster to take the solid rotation player role, something is deeply concern.

Pinamonti (Salary was ridiculous else I think it would work) and Radu (extremely unfortunate scenario) are close examples that could become the thing I envisioned, but we all knew what those 2 didn't work out.

 

[Adriano@10]

Are we really having this discussion after he scored 1 and assisted 1 in coppa game against a serie b side?
Dude is talented but has barely developed since his first stint at inter and I doubt not sending him away would have changed this. The main obstacle to him becoming inter material thus far has been his head.

 

[.h.]

TBH nothing against D'ambro and Darmian, but how hard is it to train up a kid to just that level? Like to get the kid to become a world beater might be hard, but a strong solider (jacks of all trades) that gets the tactics right, but nothing extremely outstanding in flashy skills or physical stuffs should be achievable without hindering results right? Quite sure Fontanarosa can become something like that easily.

I am not saying all youngsters can be developed as so, like Yann Karamoh, I don't see him a good utility player; and not all position we can afford to play someone that has too much direct impact to the game, like our #9 position, but if we cannot even develop some youngster to take the solid rotation player role, something is deeply concern.

Pinamonti (Salary was ridiculous else I think it would work) and Radu (extremely unfortunate scenario) are close examples that could become the thing I envisioned, but we all knew what those 2 didn't work out.

Honestly, if we could train up kids on a repeatable basis to that level, we would do. Fuck every club would. They are far more talented than people give them credit for tbh. If there was a predictable path, we'd have the secret to 50m plusvalenza every season.


Your comment makes me think of this:

Loading…

www.basketballnetwork.net

The gap is massive, and our average youth production is like mid level B rotation. Two decades ago, on average, most of our youth players didn't even make a professional career. At least that has significantly improved.

 

[Adriano@10]

TBH nothing against D'ambro and Darmian, but how hard is it to train up a kid to just that level? Like to get the kid to become a world beater might be hard, but a strong solider (jacks of all trades) that gets the tactics right, but nothing extremely outstanding in flashy skills or physical stuffs should be achievable without hindering results right? Quite sure Fontanarosa can become something like that easily.

The problem is you dont develop them to that level by giving em bench minutes.... darmian was a starter n serie B at 19 dambro with 20/21....
Thats the problem and it probably costs more to keep those guys around even on loan then it costs to just get em back when/if they develop...

 

[.h.]

The problem is you dont develop them to that level by giving em bench minutes.... darmian was a starter n serie B at 19 dambro with 20/21....
Thats the problem and it probably costs more to keep those guys around even on loan then it costs to just get em back when/if they develop...

And more importantly they kept developing too - they kept getting new challenges and rising to those challenges.

 

[#NotForMe]

Honestly, if we could train up kids on a repeatable basis to that level, we would do. Fuck every club would. They are far more talented than people give them credit for tbh. If there was a predictable path, we'd have the secret to 50m plusvalenza every season.


Your comment makes me think of this:

Loading…

www.basketballnetwork.net

The gap is massive, and our average youth production is like mid level B rotation. Two decades ago, on average, most of our youth players didn't even make a professional career. At least that has significantly improved.

I recognize that, but here is the thing I am not talking about we develop them in mass production, so the average doesn't mean much to me.
I am talking about our 95th-99th percentile youth in 3 years(not annually) cannot even get to a back up level for us is concerning.

The problem is you dont develop them to that level by giving em bench minutes.... darmian was a starter n serie B at 19 dambro with 20/21....
Thats the problem and it probably costs more to keep those guys around even on loan then it costs to just get em back when/if they develop...

This reasoning I can live with more, but still doubting is it really cheaper in cost, especially their wages should be low and they should be able to contribute early on. I didn't throw in the numbers to check, but I do have doubts.
Benching isn't development, think Barca or even Real these days playing youngsters.

 

[.h.]

I recognize that, but here is the thing I am not talking about we develop them in mass production, so the average doesn't mean much to me.
I am talking about our 95th-99th percentile youth in 3 years(not annually) cannot even get to a back up level for us is concerning.



This reasoning I can live with more, but still doubting is it really cheaper in cost, especially their wages should be low and they should be able to contribute early on. I didn't throw in the numbers to check, but I do have doubts.
Benching isn't development, think Barca or even Real these days playing youngsters.

I don't think many of any clubs can reliably produce at the 95-99th percentile though. That's kinda my point. 95-99th percentile given an average squad of 20 players means one a year who is at that level? How many clubs can consistently produce at that level?

At Inter our backups are Italy fringe players, roughly speaking. If you say an Italy fringe players has an average of 5 years at the Italy fringe, and a broader squad of maybe 40 players, then you're talking about producing one of the 40/5 = 8 players a year who will get roughly to that level. That's across Serie A and B, so 42 clubs. 8/42 is 0.2 players per year if it's randomly distributed, or for Inter we would produce about one every 5 years.

Consider that right now we have Di Gregorio, Dimarco, Biraghi, Salvatore Esposito, Pinamonti, Zaniolo and Gnonto, you could probably argue we are ahead of expectations ..

 

[#NotForMe]

I don't think many of any clubs can reliably produce at the 95-99th percentile though. That's kinda my point. 95-99th percentile given an average squad of 20 players means one a year who is at that level? How many clubs can consistently produce at that level?

No, I mean the 99th percentile of our academy in a 3-5 years spam, not the 99th percentile of all the youth players in the globe.

Like our best of the best in our own academy should be able to become at least some Serie A mid table player, no? Which should be sufficient as a back up for us.

I mean I can think of a lot of example, the question is why didn't we even keep them in the first place.

In other words, was buying Vecino or Gags a better business than keeping Duncan or Benassi?

 

[.h.]

No, I mean the 99th percentile of our academy in a 3-5 years spam, not the 99th percentile of all the youth players in the globe.

Like our best of the best in our own academy should be able to become at least some Serie A mid table player, no? Which should be sufficient as a back up for us.

I mean I can think of a lot of example, the question is why didn't we even keep them in the first place.

See above btw I edited my post

 

[.h.]

To your edit

Ironically enough Benassi is probably the perfect example of my point.

So, he's 29, has 200 Serie A games under his belt..he should be in the prime if his career right?

He was mutually terminated almost a year ago, has failed to find any club since. There might be some backstory, I'm not aware of, but like... That's way way behind Gaga and Vecino.

Duncan. 31. Fairly consistent for Fiorentina the last few seasons, but again, released by them.


Sorry but I don't think those guys are good enough for Inter. Gags and vecinoe weren't either really, but they were better than Benassi/Duncan. I know it's popular to shit on the worst of our own players but like, they both are better than we give them credit for. And still not good enough for Inter.

 

[#NotForMe]

To your edit

Ironically enough Benassi is probably the perfect example of my point.

So, he's 29, has 200 Serie A games under his belt..he should be in the prime if his career right?

He was mutually terminated almost a year ago, has failed to find any club since. There might be some backstory, I'm not aware of, but like... That's way way behind Gaga and Vecino.

Duncan. 31. Fairly consistent for Fiorentina the last few seasons, but again, released by them.


Sorry but I don't think those guys are good enough for Inter. Gags and vecinoe weren't either really, but they were better than Benassi/Duncan. I know it's popular to shit on the worst of our own players but like, they both are better than we give them credit for. And still not good enough for Inter.

Yea I was aware of that even when I used him as example to put my argument in a disadvantage position that it might still worth it even that, and I believe for Benassi was related to some injury thing or something similar to Sensi (Ironically). We also did a lot of golden handshakes too.

But back to the main topic, the thing is if both parties are not good enough for Inter then what is the net damage to Inter, financially and performance combined in comparison if we kept them instead of buying, also I think it is quite debatable if they truly are better than Benassi/Duncan, cause during the best years at Fiorentina, they did quite good.

Anyway I don't want to go for specific cases, but my point is we should be producing players like Di Gregorio, Biraghi, Pinamonti level that should be able to at least hold a rotation spot here, and like you pointed out we are ahead of expectations, but we are not retaining them, what I come up with is, it can be due to play style positions, coaches' preferences, or accounting reasons etc. which I am not sure if this outweighs keeping them in the first place, which could?

Again the role for them would be more Darmian's.

They definitely treated youth players really bad in Italy.

 

[Il Drago]

To your edit

Ironically enough Benassi is probably the perfect example of my point.

So, he's 29, has 200 Serie A games under his belt..he should be in the prime if his career right?

He was mutually terminated almost a year ago, has failed to find any club since. There might be some backstory, I'm not aware of, but like... That's way way behind Gaga and Vecino.

Duncan. 31. Fairly consistent for Fiorentina the last few seasons, but again, released by them.


Sorry but I don't think those guys are good enough for Inter. Gags and vecinoe weren't either really, but they were better than Benassi/Duncan. I know it's popular to shit on the worst of our own players but like, they both are better than we give them credit for. And still not good enough for Inter.

Benassi had a career ending injury in 2020 when he was at Fiorentina. He never recovered from it. Not that he was ever good enough to play for a Scudetto contender Inter. But till then he could easily start for a midtable Serie A club.

Also I don't think you look at it from the right perspective. It isn't important the level they are now. Obviously they were never good enough for a top Inter. But when they left, Inter had one of the worst sides in the history of the club. I can't see how giving a chance to Benassi or Duncan would have been worse than signing the likes of Kuzmanovic, Gargano, Mudingayi and Taider. Even when we were broke and we had hit rock bottom we still preferred signing absolute shitters than giving a chance to a primavera kid.

 

[.h.]

Isn't that actually the very time we started to give more chances to them? The first season we had kuzmanovic, bonazzoli, olsen, donkor, all played for the first team. The second season he was here, Camara, donkor, dimarco, gnoukouri, krhin, obi, bonazzoli and puscas played for us, with Obi getting 18 games and Krhin, puscas, bonazzoli and
Gnoukouri getting more than 5 games?

And obviously our league performances dropped off a cliff and everyone here bitched about squad depth..?


And from that list who do we regret? None. Dimarco is the only one who ended up useful for Inter, and he's still here.

 

[Il Drago]

I see you choose to mention everyone but Benassi and Duncan. Duncan had 3 league appearances and 25 minutes before sending him out on loan. Benassi was more lucky as he was still at the club when Strama was playing youngsters out of desperation due to injury crisis in second half of 2012/13 so he got 6 league appearances (3 starts) before leaving on loan.

Dimarco is still at Inter because Verona fucked up. They had an option to keep him permanently without a buyback option for Inter. We were lucky enough that Verona asked for a discount because Juric had left and EdF didn't consider him important for his back 4. Even Ausilio himself admitted they didn't expect Dimarco to become that good.