This is nothing than a general prejudice with italian teams, matured in the times when frustrated teams could never beat italian teams who won and won in the past years. Go and look at Sacchi's Milan in the 80's and say to me if it was a defense team, go and look at Lippi's Juventus in 90's, at Lippi's Inter (even though he failed with us), at Fabio Capello's Rome and Juventus, at Ancelotti's Milan since 5 years until today, at Mancini's Inter who plays regularly with Adriano, Martins or Recoba, Stankovic, Veron and Figo! Wow, 5 forward players!......................At our national team, (except the Trapattoni era, who was more than defensive) who is a full attack team who plays with Del Piero, Totti, Gilardino and Toni............4 forward players.................................In the 70's we played with players such Mazzola, Boninsegna, Bettega, Riva, Rivera who were scoring goals after goals, in 1982 we've won the Worlchampionship beating in order Argentina, Brasil, Poland (wo was a great team at that time, Gomulka and Boniek, just 2 names) and Germany. And we had players such Paolo Rossi, Conti, Tardelli who run like formula1 cars. Not talking about the generation of Roberto Baggio, Gianluca Vialli, Giannini, Signori................
Isn't it a bit strange that Sacchi, Lippi, Capello, Ancelotti have so many incredible requests from the half world? Everyone want them because they're masters in offensive football. That Italy's football was or is defensive is nothing else than a false legend, invented by all the ones who could never beat italian teams. Many foreigners have learned in Italy football. History speaks alone, when Germany won the Worldchampionship in 1990 players like Matthaeus, Brehme, Klinsmann, Voeller, Kohler, Haessler and many other were playing in Italy, when France won in 1998 Zidane, Deschamps, Desailly, Dugarry and many others were playing in Italy since years. Still today we got the greatest foreign champions that other countries can only dream, Trezeguet, Ibrahimovic, Adriano, Kakà, Shevchenko etc etc
And more, Italy had PLATINI, MARADONA, VAN BASTEN, GULLIT, the same Rijkaard plus an infinite list of players who weren't just offensive players, but more...............................the fake theory that italian football was or is defensive is weak, sorry, too weak, ungenerous, groundless at least.........................................