MILAN – The head of the AC Milan Youth Sector, Filippo Galli, was in Pescara on Monday for the opening of the "Donati di Rancitelli" football pitch. The newly inaugurated pitch will be run by AS Gladius Pescara 2010, a club that has been affiliated with AC Milan for 5 years. 
Speaking at the event, AS Gladius President Angelo Nicolo' said: "With this collaboration with Milan, we are putting into practice a long term project for the soccer school children allowing them to begin an important development path. To have Milan by our side is obviously a priority and to have Filippo Galli present here shows how seriously the rossoneri club takes our work. In the future, we want to create something important for our children, bringing to Pescara the Milan Lab facilities to show them and help them get to know what lies behind the preparation and development of players." 
The head of the AC Milan Youth Sector Filippo Galli underlined the importance AC Milan gives to youth development: "The Milan youth project began 15 years ago with the objective of helping with the development of the children and bring them closer to the Milan reality. We want our youth players to be a part of a pleasant learning environment. To achieve this we also wanted to create the Milan Academy to train our coaches and managers that are in close contact with the youth players. We rely a lot on training. If the adults are well prepared, so are the children. Helping the children from our soccer schools in their development is important, but educating them is the main priority. Soccer schools must have the following goal: train, educate and help the children grow." 
Filippo Galli added this whilst commenting on youth sectors in Italy: "It is never easy in Italy. Other countries rely more on youth and I am referring to other clubs that are much further ahead than us like Barcelona, Ajax and Manchester City. We have to try and be braver in investing in youth, also because then what happens is that we go and buy players from abroad."