In the first five rounds of the Serie A season, only 28.2 per cent of the playing time went to Italians, with clubs including Milan, Juventus and Como dominated by foreign talent.
During this on-going crisis for the Italy squad, reflected in the Nations League opening day 2-0 defeat to Belgium, Il Fatto Quotidiano took a look at the statistics after 50 Serie A matches this season.
It found that 454 different players were used, and 71.9 per cent of them were not Italian.
That is an even higher figure than the average for last season, which reached 69.1 per cent foreign talent.
The worst offenders are Venezia, who currently sit rock bottom of the table after five defeats in five rounds, as 99.6 per cent of the players used were foreign.
Among the bigger clubs, Como are third worse with only 4.5 per cent of the players used being Italian, and this is after buying Moise Kean, Samuele Ricci and Mattia Liberali over the summer to hit UEFA parameters on homegrown talent.
Milan aren’t much better with 7.7 per cent, and Juventus are a step up on 15.2 per cent of their squad from the Peninsula.
The top two sides, Inter and Roma, have at least a core of Italian players, respectively 29.3 per cent and 29 per cent of their players on the field available for selection by Roberto Mancini.
Frosinone have been the most pro-actively Italian team in the league this term, as 69.9 per cent of the playing time was given to locals.
Monza are next best with 56.8 per cent, then Atalanta 46.2 per cent, Cagliari 43.6 per cent and Lazio 36.2 per cent.
Serie A sides by percentage of Italian playing time
Frosinone 69.9
Monza 56.8
Atalanta 46.2
Cagliari 43.6
Lazio 36.2
Parma 35.3
Bologna 34.7
Napoli 33.1
Torino 30.3
Inter 29.3
Roma 29
Fiorentina 26.2
Genoa 24.1
Sassuolo 20.9
Lecce 15.5
Juventus 15.2
Milan 7.7
Como 4.5
Udinese 4.2
Venezia 0.4
