There is a kind of soccer that does not end up on television, that does not fill stadiums or talk shows. It is the soccer of patchy fields, peeling walls, and improvised games played at sunset.
And it is precisely there, according to Claudio Rossi— coach and the clear voice of a movement that risks being lost—that the game could rediscover itself.
Rossi observes soccer from a privileged and complex position: the gateway to adulthood, that fragile and powerful period between the ages of 16 and 18.
An age when soccer can become a dream or a wound.
And he doesn’t like what he sees every day.
The crisis is not in the forms, but in the souls
For Rossi, the crisis in Italian soccer is neither tactical nor technical: it is emotional.
It is the consequence of a system that has forgotten its truest origin: freedom.
“We have turned the game into an industry of anxiety,” he says with the simplicity of someone who does not need to raise his voice.
Coaches who shout more than they listen.
Parents who confuse their own desires with those of their children.
Clubs that look for “catalog” physiques before even watching how a kid handles the ball.
His is a gentle but radical indictment:
we have sterilized soccer, taken off our bare feet and put on shin guards.
We have replaced imagination with statistics.
We have created kids who play not to make mistakes, not to invent. And all this, in the Under-18s, explodes with disarming clarity.
“They arrive with fear in their eyes,” he says.
“They have internalized the idea that a mistake defines who you are. And that is the most unfair thing we can do to a kid.”
For Rossi, talent is not cultivated by pushing: it is cultivated by letting it breathe: “A child is not a project: he is a seed.
And the only water he needs is trust.”
He writes this well and clearly in his book: “Calcio Scalzo Cuore Pieno” (Barefoot Soccer, Full Heart), first prize in the literary competition “Oggi è Domani – Città di Verona” (Today is Tomorrow – City of Verona) in the sports literature section.
It is not just a title, it is a manifesto, a hymn, a sweet and desperate cry for a game that is losing its soul.
“I wrote it to remind people that talent is born out of love and not under the weight of pressure,” he says.
Interview with Claudio Rossi
“The kids will save soccer if we adults learn to take a step back.”**
Claudio, you coach the Under-18s: what worries you most today?
I see too much fear and too little courage.
At seventeen, you should be experimenting, taking risks, laughing at your mistakes.
Instead, many kids arrive already crushed by the expectations of adults.
You talk about a deep crisis in our soccer. Where do you think it comes from?
It comes from the need to control everything.
To measure every gesture, every movement.
But soccer is not a laboratory: it is a language.
And kids need to learn to speak it freely.
You often say that “we have replaced creativity with statistics.” What do you mean?
That we have built a system that teaches us to avoid risk.
Creativity is unpredictable, you can’t tabulate it.
But it is precisely this unpredictability that makes a player great.
What is the role of the coach in this context?
He is not a director, he is not a god.
The coach must be a catalyst.
A spark.
Someone who brings out the best, not someone who imposes.
The protagonists must be the kids. Always.
And what about the parents?
Parents should change their grammar.
Don’t ask “How did you do?” but “How much fun did you have?”
If you take away the joy, you take away everything.
Soccer was born as a game, not as an evaluation.
Do you see a possibility for rebirth in this crisis?
Absolutely yes.
I see it every time a kid is left alone with a ball and a wall.
There, he is not judged.
There, he is not afraid.
There, soccer still breathes.
And it is from that breath that we can start again.
Is there a phrase that sums up your vision?
Yes: “The heart of the ball still beats, even when no one hears it.”
We just need to learn to listen to it again.
Conclusion
The crisis in soccer, in the words of Claudio Rossi, is not a technical problem: it is a problem of perspective.
Of adults who are too restrictive.
Of young people who are not given enough freedom.
Of a game that has forgotten its childhood.
But his voice is not pessimistic: it is a reminder.
Soccer can be reborn, he says.
And it will do so in the simplest of places: on fields without lines, on peeling walls, in the clear eyes of the Under-18s.
Where it all began.
Where, if you listen carefully, the ball still beats.
There is a kind of soccer that does not end up on television, that does not fill stadiums or talk shows.
It is the soccer of patchy fields, peeling walls, and improvised games at sunset.
And it is precisely there, according to Claudio Rossi — Under-18 coach and lucid voice of a movement that risks being lost — that the game could rediscover itself.
For Rossi, talent is not cultivated by pushing: it is cultivated by letting it breathe.
“A kid is not a project: he is a seed.
And the only water he needs is trust.”
Thank you, Claudio.
