Football
Dan Kilpatrick, Tottenham Correspondent 6y

Youthful Italy re-starting from close to zero - Leonardo Bonucci

LONDON -- Italy stalwart Leonardo Bonucci has warned his young teammates that the Azzurri's renaissance will not happen overnight and says they are rebuilding from "not very far from zero."

Bonucci, 30, believes Italy's fresh faces cannot be compared to England's much more experienced young crop ahead of their meeting in a friendly at Wembley Stadium on Tuesday.

The four-time world champions failed to qualify for the World Cup for the first time since 1958, after a playoff defeat to Sweden in November, and they have entered a period of rebuilding and soul-searching.

Interim manager Luigi Di Biagio included a number of young players in the squad for Friday's 2-0 defeat to Argentina as well as Tuesday's game, among them Lorenzo Pellegrini, who has said Italy are "fed up" of seeing other nations win.

"What Lorenzo said ... he's very young," said AC Milan's Bonucci, who will captain Italy in the absence of goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon, who will be rested.

"We need his enthusiasm, we need players like that but at the same time we're undergoing a big change and we need to see things for what they are.

"We can't be expected to win straight away. We're playing tomorrow a team that has managed to undergo a change very well -- they have a very talented group of young players who have lot of international experience.

"We have many young players with less international experience. Also in Serie A, other than the two or three top teams, the teams play less in Europe and have less experience than many teams in the Premier League.

"There's no point looking back -- we should look forward, not to the past. The past stays there. We have a much younger team at the moment with not much international experience. You can't even compare our players born in '93, '94, '96, '97 with the English players born in the same years.

"These friendlies are very useful for younger players to get international experience and play at this level. I don't think we'll grow so fast.

"You need to understand and we need to understand that Italy starts at -- I'm not saying at zero but -- not very far from zero. So patience is the key. We need to be patient, let young players grow and hopefully they take us back to the Italy we're used to."

As an example, Bonucci pointed to Gianluigi Donnarumma, the 19-year-old goalkeeper who will start ahead of Buffon against Gareth Southgate's side.

The AC Milan stopper is being hailed as the longterm successor to Buffon, who is expected to retire from international football in June.

"Donnarumma is very young and we need to give him space to grow," Bonucci said of his clubmate. "He's very good but only 19. We should just let him achieve his potential. I will do all I can to lead this group of players."

Bonucci has only started once at a World Cup, in the group stage against Uruguay in 2014, having been an unused substitute for the entire 2010 tournament. He said it would "hurt" watching next summer's finals in Russia on television.

He said: "It will be hard. Then what happened will really hit home. We will be at home watching the World Cup on the telly rather than being there and playing. It hurts, I'm not going to lie.

"On a personal point of view you never stop learning so playing the World Cup is important for personal growth as well to keep improving. But there is no point looking back.

"The World Cup will come and go then we need to work hard to get Italy back to the level it deserves to be with patience and determination."

The match is expected to be Di Biagio's last as interim coach but he is reportedly in contention for the role full-time and could stay on as part of the backroom staff of his eventual successor.

"It is not a problem I consider so far," Di Biagio said. "It will be something I consider when the times comes. I can answer when the time comes, not now."

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