When Serie A spoke Italian: 7 out of 10 footballers are foreigners

The theme of the presence of foreigners in Serie A returns with increasing frequency and the foreign-oriented trend of our championship does not seem to be reversing. Indeed, data in hand, the trend appears unstoppable, with a constant decrease in Italian players in the tricolor clubs.

But exactly, how many foreigners are there in our championship? Which nations do they come from? And what are the rosters of the other major European championships composed of? Time2play, a blog that carries out research on current sports topics and more, has carried out research on the presence of foreign footballers in Serie A, comparing the data with those of the Premier League, LaLiga, Bundesliga and Ligue 1. It also traced the trend of the phenomenon from the 1993/1994 football season to the current one, collecting information on the presence of foreigners in European football over the last 30 years.

The roses of Serie A are increasingly international and over half of the players who take to the field every week are foreigners. In fact, out of 567 players registered with the 20 clubs in our championship, 362 are not Italian (so 63,8%). The most foreign-loving team of all is Udinese, with 30 foreigners in the squad out of 35 (85%), followed by Torino, which has 21 out of 26 (80%), and Genoa, with 22 out of 29 total players (75,8%). And the others are no exception: with 75,8% (22 players out of 29) in fourth place we find Genoa, followed by Milan with 75% (21 out of 28) and Lecce with 73,3% (22 out of 30).

As for the other big teams in Serie A, Napoli and Roma are tied for ninth (with 65,38% foreigners), Inter are twelfth (64%), Lazio are fifteenth (58%) and Juve are seventeenth (50%). The most 'Italian' team is Monza, which has just 10 foreign players out of 29, 34,4% of the total.

The Lombard team has always fielded a predominantly Italian team and relies heavily on local talent. And the results have not disappointed: in 2023, they obtained 33 points in 20 games. A ride that was the result of 8 wins, 9 draws and only 3 defeats. Just below the top is Empoli, with 19 Italian players (43,3% of the total). Third among the least foreign-loving teams is Cagliari. The Sardinian team, with the arrival of Ranieri, managed to obtain 35 points in 19 games last season, achieving promotion to Serie A.

The data shows that football is increasingly following the processes of globalization, with an inevitable loss of identity for our league.

It is also undeniable, however, that a multicultural locker room represents an added value, offering important opportunities for discussion. And in a country where foreigners are often looked upon with suspicion, football can truly represent a model of integration and inclusiveness. So which are the most international teams in Serie A? And from which countries do the foreigners who play on our football fields come? By analyzing the data on the composition of the 20 squads, Time2play has drawn up a ranking of the most multicultural clubs. In first place, tied, are Genoa and Udinese with 18 nationalities. Second place for Turin and Verona with 17, and third place for Lecce, Salernitana and Naples, which have players from 15 different countries. The surprising one is Juventus, last in this special ranking, whose 12 foreigners on the pitch come from 'only' 6 different parts of the world.

Looking instead at the countries of origin of the foreigners 'adopted' by our football, France, Argentina and Brazil are the nations that contribute most to the foreign-loving nature of the top Italian championship. 41 footballers are in fact French, while the Argentines and Brazilians are respectively 30 and 26. Poland, Spain and Holland follow ex aequo with 19 players each.

Serie A is not an exception, however. All the major European leagues resort to foreign talent. The Premier League dominates the ranking of the most foreign-loving league in Europe, with 69,1% of non-native players (362 out of 567). In second place is Serie A (63,8%). Third place, with 57,1%, is for Ligue 1: 276 foreign players out of a total of 483. In the Bundesliga, in fourth place, the percentage drops to 48,4% (248 foreign players out of a total of 512). LaLiga, therefore, takes the record for the least foreign-loving league: only 203 non-Spanish players out of a total of 490, 41,4% overall.

The Time2play editorial team has also drawn up a ranking of the 20 European teams with the most foreigners on the pitch. The Premier League (with 10 teams) and Serie A (with 6) share the top spot for the leagues with the most foreign-loving clubs in Europe. With 24 foreign players out of 26 (92,3%), Fulham is the team with the fewest native players, followed by Udinese (85%) and Wolverhampton (22 out of 26 players). Only one Bundesliga club appears in the ranking of the most foreign-loving squads, and that is Bayer Leverkusen, with 20 foreign players out of 27, while to find a Liga club you have to get to 41st place, with Real Madrid at 65,2% (15 players out of 23).

On the podium of the most homegrown teams we find Athletic Bilbao, with only one foreign player out of 25. The club only signs Basque players and, considering the results (it is the only team together with Barcelona and Real Madrid never to have been relegated to the second division), the strategy is much appreciated by the fans who in 2010, through a survey, rejected the proposal to open the squad to players from outside. Osasuna (LaLiga) follows with a great distance with 4 players out of 24 (16,6%) and 1.FC Heidenheim 1846 (Bundesliga) with 5 foreigners out of 28 (17,8%). Monza, a team made in Italy par excellence, and the only Italian club in this ranking, is in tenth position.

The Italian Serie A championship has seen an ever-increasing number of foreign players arrive over the years. Time2Play has analyzed data from the last 30 years, from the 1993/94 season to today, comparing them with those of the Premier League, LaLiga, Bundesliga and Ligue 1. In our fields, the number of talents born outside the national borders has increased by 417%, going from just 70 to 362, three times more than the major European championships. The turning point for the free movement of players in our country came with the Bosman ruling in 1995. From then on, the number of foreigners has increased steadily over time and in the 1996/97 championship our stadiums witnessed a real invasion: in the previous season they were just 13,6% of the total, to reach 24% in the post-Bosman ruling. A process that will lead to the overtaking in the 2015/16 season, when for the first time the majority of registered players (50,7%) will not be of Italian nationality. Even in other European fields, the increase has been substantial, but in comparison the data is surprising and not a little. The average increase, in fact, stands at 133%: from the 1993/94 season to today in Ligue 1 foreigners have increased by 165% (from 104 to 276), in La Liga by 144% (from 83 to 203), in the Bundesliga by 133% (from 106 to 248). In the Premier League, where foreigners were already numerous, the increase was 'only' 89% (from 202 to 383).