Pecchia, parmigiana recipe. "Young Italians are here, the only way to do sports in a sustainable way"

He is one of the most interesting coaches of recent years, for his game ideas and results. He does not lack courage, even in his personal choices: leaving Cremonese immediately after bringing them back to Serie A was no small feat, managing to convince Parma after having failed in their first attempt at promotion is another great result. And then he brought the dukes back to Serie A. Fabio Pecchia, awarded on Thursday in Parma by the Unione Stampa Sportiva Italiana with the other excellences of a city that in 2024 also won the baseball, American football and women's sitting volleyball championships, is a young Italian coach with very clear ideas.

Pecchia, there is a lot of talk about refereeing: is the leap from B to A also in this respect?

"From a technical and physical point of view there is a difference, from the point of view of the organisation of the squads there is a big difference, we are settling into a championship that as far as refereeing management is concerned I believe is very similar to the Serie B line".

In Parma you chose to build a team that aimed to score one more goal, rather than concede one less.

"The idea when building our team was to play proactive football, looking for goals rather than obstructionism, both at home and away. We often manage to create a lot, sometimes we have conceded more than we should have. This is Parma's DNA, even in Bologna we came close to winning in a complicated situation for us, with a second half in numerical inferiority against a strong team and in a very nice environment that pushed. We defended ourselves with order and in the end we even had two chances to find the way to goal".

You do a precise scouting job, aiming for players who are off the radar. Do you follow the Atalanta model, perhaps the only sustainable one?

"Parma is Parma, there are many realities, the vision of the club has been very clear to me since the first day I arrived, and for me this is the third year. And the vision of the club is to focus on young people to build, my job is to improve every single player. Give an idea of ​​the game, win the games obviously, but above all improve every single player to give the club sustainability. We are the team with the youngest squad in Serie A and I also believe among the youngest in Europe".

But are there young Italians or not?

"For me they are there, because in several national teams under the Under 21s we have won titles. It is clear that there is a whole path that must be faced and now compared to a few years ago there are a few more second teams that allow the clubs to monitor their boys, keep them under control within the club. This favors their growth and will certainly improve the entire football panorama of the year".

Is Parma the ideal place to raise young people?

"Parma is an extraordinary city for the quality of life and the atmosphere that you experience inside the stadium. I believe that it is a bit of the whole environment of the club that must help the improvement of young people, if a club is built to facilitate them, the improvement is easier".

You have seen the world, working in the technical staff of Real Madrid, Newcastle, in Japan. In Parma you have a foreign patron: what can exotic owners bring to Italian football?

"It's not very different. What I experienced also gave me the opportunity to get to know many realities and to understand that football can be played in many ways. More than Spain, I saw Real Madrid up close, which is something global. Then the Premier League and Japan, football is constantly evolving and you have to adapt. Coaches also need to have this ability, the openness to adapt to the methods of the different clubs. It's just a matter of keeping up with the market moment".

What's the strangest thing that's happened to you in a conversation with an American patron?

"There's nothing strange, it's not a question of strangeness. You just have to open up to a way of working that could be different from that of a traditional club."

Even on the pitch you have a multi-ethnic group, a melting pot of nationalities. How do you work?

"There are many cultures put together, we need to find a common language that can keep them together and let them express themselves while each maintains its own identity."