Bruno Reverberi returns to discuss the state of Italian cycling and offers a reflection on the current situation. The highly experienced manager, who leads the VF Group Bardiani-CSF Faizanè team with his son Roberto, spoke on RaiSport's Radiocorsa program, once again emphasizing the difficulties facing small and medium-sized teams in competing with the major names in world cycling: "For us, 2025 wasn't particularly exciting, even though we had some young riders re-sign. However, up until the Giro d'Italia , we performed reasonably well, then we also had some physical problems and some crashes. All in all, considering that ours is the youngest team in the world, we couldn't have hoped for more. Unfortunately, if someone joins, we don't have time to let them mature before they're taken away. But overall, we did well, which is what we've always done with our teams. We've brought in many young riders, and it's normal for them to leave after a year, two, or three."

Reverberi then analyzed the differences between the World Tour teams and all the others, with a gap that has increased over the years: "And it will be even worse, because there is little quality at the base –   He said: "Few good riders are emerging, there are fewer and fewer registered riders, and that's normal. If you look back 10-12 years ago—I sometimes look at photographs—we had a team that could compete in the World Tour today. Once upon a time, you'd go and pick the second-best riders and find winning riders; now you let riders through who've never won a race, because that's the quality. Unfortunately, nothing has been done to try to save the base as much as possible, and we find ourselves in this situation. We had 300 professionals, and now I don't know if we'll get to 80-90, and 90% of them just "pedal around" and go to foreign teams, and we're left with what we have."

Reverberi then revealed some changes for his team in 2026 : VF Group will no longer be our main sponsor , because it's a growing group, with enormous investments, and they've taken a step back, but they've remained part of the team as lateral sponsors. We'll always keep the jersey more or less the same color. For two years, it will still be VF Group, but the team will be called Bardiani CSF, the historic name for over 20 years. This is important, but because we've always been a bit sparing when building teams. For one thing, we've always taken on young riders, who cost little, but then you have to try to keep your feet on the ground a bit because today, asking for certain amounts becomes almost impossible, because you don't even know what to offer. What are you going to say to a sponsor? We have a cycling world where you're forced to ask almost favors to go racing because there's no right, the races are by invitation, so you can't commit too much. We are the oldest team in the world, we have been a bit thrifty and if we are still here there must be a reason."

Photo: Sprint Cycling Agency