Arguably the Premiership's greatest ever import,
Gianfranco Zola, has warned that England need to find the balance
between the number of foreigners they have in their top flight of
they'll continue to suffer at International level.
The former Chelsea legend explained: In England the teams can buy
players to take the level of the league up, but you have to find a
balance.
"Bringing in too many foreign players is not always the right thing
to do. The best years in Italian football were the end of the 1980s
and the start of the 1990s as every year we had finalists in all
the European competitions.
One of the reasons is because we only were allowed three
foreigners per team. They were the best in the world and it was a
perfect balance because the core of the team was Italian.
That is a very important thing to look after because that allows
the young players to come through, as well as taking the levels up
by having a few foreign players.
He adde: If you look at the Italian teams through history, the
amount of pressure they carry is huge, but it brings the best out
of them.
I have to say that, in attitude, Italian teams could teach many
other countries a lot of things, including England. England have
talent, stature, the background and history, but I dont understand
why you dont win with the national team. Sometimes I think that
when you play, your players do not give it their best shot. I
particularly think that was the case last summer at the World
Cup.
