Italy, Ranieri: “I haven’t read Maldini and Leonardo’s ideas; I’m pursuing my own. Let’s copy tennis. The youngsters in the Primavera are too old; educational psychologists for the younger ones”

How will the FIGC and Club Italia continue their revival?

It is 100 days since Giovanni Malagò took charge, first as federation president and then as federation commissioner. Alongside Malagò and Mancini, Claudio Ranieri took up the role of sporting director of Club Italia on the same day. Today, he spoke to Sky Sport about the project he has in mind.

"I must say that the president of Club Italia works hard on many fronts. It is a role that fills my day and makes me happy. The work is meticulous. If you remember, I said that I saw two areas we needed to improve.

One was the grassroots sector: children aged five to thirteen. The other was the bottleneck that developed after the Primavera: young players aged 18 to 21 who were unable to enter the professional game, perhaps in large numbers."

"Try taking the ball away from a five- or six-year-old child. Try it: it's theirs, it belongs to them, and they don't want to pass it. So we need psychopedagogical programmes suited to children aged five, six, seven and eight. Psychologists and suitably qualified people need to help us with this: a football coach alone is not enough."

"We are still in the realm of speculation, because ideas then have to be developed together. I think there are still players in the Primavera who are already grown up. I've seen that in Serie C there is a playing-time incentive: if you give young players a certain amount of playing time, you receive a certain amount of money.

Let's try doing that in Serie B too. We have helped foreigners come here through the Decreto Crescita, so why don't we try doing the same for young players, so that clubs in Serie B and Serie C can give them playing time and help them progress gradually? Football cannot do it alone: all the institutions and the government need to do something."

"Maldini and Leonardo's plan? I haven't read it, to be honest. Because when you get into these intricacies of football, you want to have your own vision, your own way of working.

And it's not just me: I rely on other people who are very, very important, because I wouldn't have managed to do anything on my own. I have to thank Zola, Viscidi and Milani, who are doing a great deal of work for Club Italia.

I've only spoken to Malagò. I'm a man who works on the pitch; I don't want to deal with other matters. The project is sound, as we've said, and it can get under way. Maldini said it would take eight to ten years. I agree."

"We are starting from the same foundations that tennis started from. This summer I met a tennis coach who was studying hard to take the final step: becoming a professional tennis coach, with a qualification that would allow him to coach Sinner too. I want to help these grassroots coaches improve, because they are the future of potential champions."

"We must learn to go back to what we used to do. Coaches are good these days; they want to show their knowledge and ability, but they forget about the child. The child must be at the centre of this project; we cannot forget that.

In grassroots football, we need to teach children how to control the ball, run with it and kick it: all these little things. And situational football too: what we did as children at the parish, out in the streets and in the squares. We picked up the ball and nobody told us to move diagonally or anything else. We picked up the ball and wanted to dribble past everyone."

"No, no, no, for the love of God! Let’s forget the ‘Ranieri method’. We’re Italian; we have to do the things we’ve been good at doing. It doesn’t all need to be done again: it all needs to be improved. And I’d like everything I’ve just said to be reflected on the pitch. That would be the most wonderful thing I could have done.

I had Christian Damiano as a member of my staff. He worked with Gérard Houllier, who set up Clairefontaine. He was the head coach who taught the other coaches what they had to do. Those coaches were then placed in the various districts of these training centres, and he would turn up unexpectedly to see whether the work he had set out was being done. That in itself is a good thing.”