Inter’s World-Beating Kiddie Squad — Nothing But Class, Baby

By: Martha | December 11th, 2006

Baby Inter Those of you who don’t spend as much time on the Inter website as I (read: everyone) may not be aware of the incredible depth of information available therein — let me tell you, it’s mind-blowing. In addition to match reports, bios, and more training photos than anyone could ever want, there is also an endless array of detail available about the club’s entire youth setup, right down to the trio of U-11 teams.

I bring this up not just in the interest of informing the masses, but because Pulcini A (the top U-11 team, as far as I can tell) is having, well, a rather impressive season. In my own defense, I swear I don’t actually spend much time in that section of the website — but when a news story about a 39-0 victory pops up on the front page, I feel the need to do some investigating. Yes, I said 39-0 — please tell me I’m not the only one who finds that excessive. I don’t care how important the stats are for these 10 year olds, 39 goals is too goddamn many. And, as you might expect, this was not an unusual occurrence for Pulcini A: In 10 games, they’ve scored a total of 122 goals and given up only nine (five of them in one game), winning games by scores of, yes, 39-0, but also 32-1, 24-2 and 18-2. Their joint leading scores have 22 goals each and are averaging over two per game, assuming they both have played every match. (Given the pattern here, I fully expect they’ve played 90 minutes of every game, and were attacking eagerly til the last second in each one.)

Now, let me ask you something: Is this really necessary?! To be fair, there are a lot of lopsided scores in the league in which the Pulcini A side plays, but still — will these boys not learn about killer instinct beating teams by 10 goals instead of 20? It seems to me they’re all being turned into classless assholes by this setup — honestly, what could be the justification within the academy for these scores? I suppose it’s possible that they actually are sandbagging and would be winning 75-1 if they weren’t, but that seems unlikely to say the least. I don’t suppose any of you have actually seen this team play? You Tube is totally letting me down. Hmm. Maybe we should take a field trip …