'Icardi wouldn't have played in 1999'

By Football Italia staff

Antonio Cassano claims Italian sides are not good enough to adopt ‘guardiolismo’ and that Mauro Icardi ‘wouldn’t have played’ for Inter in 1999.

Icardi has established himself as one of Europe’s top strikers, but Cassano made it clear the Argentine would not have displaced Ronaldo and Christian Vieri at Inter, while describing the level of Serie A as ‘low’.

“In 1999, for example, when I started playing professional football, there were players like Pirlo, [Francesco] Cozza and [Roberto] Baronio at Reggina, who were fighting to stay up,” he continued to Il Secolo XIX.

“What has changed since then? Everything comes in cycles. At that time Italian football was made of many No 10s like Baggio, Totti, Del Piero and I, plus there were lots of good defenders.

“In 2006 we won a World Cup by playing long balls to [Luca] Toni. Now ‘guardiolismo’ reigns [referring to Pep Guardiola], but there’s only one Guardiola in the world.

“There isn’t enough quality in Italian football to adopt his philosophy. When I say that the level of Serie A is low, I don’t want to sound snobbish. I’m just using my time as a benchmark.

“If Icardi had been at Inter, would he have played in front of Ronaldo and Vieri?”

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