All I hear is the English talking about how great Kanu, Bergkamp, Ziege etc are.

Wow, guess what those guys couldn't do jack in Italy. Thats because Siere A is a much more brutal and demanding style of football.

If an Italian player goes over to England, even in the late stages of his career he finds quite a bit of ease.

Look at Zola, Vialli, Gullit, Di Canio and the others that only go to England because they are not good enough to stay on a strong Italian club. They can either play for little money on a team like Verona or on a team like Chelsea for more money.

Face it the only reason Chelesa is good is because of its Ex Italian trained stars.

The world your living in is a dream world. Wake up. Did you know that Kanu, Bergkamp, Ziege, Petit, Vieira, Ljungberg, Stam, Keane and a whole host more are full internationals, playing for some of the best international teams around. So I guess if they can cut it for international teams, then maybe the premier league is slighlty tougher than you thought.

And guess what, maybe these players couldn't get used to the superb diving and acting skills of the italian league, and after searching for greener pastures found it. Can I let you in on a little secret here. Well, the main reason players flock to italy is because they're willing to pay ****loads of money, nothing else. Just look at the brat anelka, he would've been off to Lazio for 22mill pound( because of the 60k+ he would've earned per week ) , but eventually signed for madrid. Funny that we bought him for 500k, I doubt there's too big italian team that has turned a player into a star, they merely buy the stars. Just look at the recent purchases in italy, it's bloody ridiculous that's what it is. And funny once again how we bought two frenchman ( Petit and Grimandi ) for a combined 2mill pound. Last year two italian teams were prepared to buy Petit for 8 mill alone. So I think once the players head starts to swell and he wants to earn more he goes to Italy.

As for Chelsea, yes, there's Zola and Di matteo, but who else ? Desailly has been terrible, probable defensive tactics he picked up in Italy. Here is Chelsea's heart and soul - De goey. Leboeuf, poyet, wise, di matteo, zola, flo.

Only foreign player that comes to mind as far as turning into a star in Italy is Bierhoff.

I do agree about the rest of your post. There is a lot of competition to get in the top squads in Italy which means many of these players never get a chance to show their stuff, for ex. Kanu, practically never got a chance to play, he would usually go in only as sub, but no wonder when he had to compete for spot with Ronaldo, Zamorano, Ventola, Baggio etc.

Think about situation of Recoba now, he was the discovery of the season last year for Venezia, Inter takes him back off the loan and he still can't get in the game. Finally he gets in the game as a sub last week and scores the game winning goal.