If they open their borders, they are not opening for criminals alone, most of this immigrants go through profiling and are well documented, there is no doubt that there are some of them that might have some criminal elements among them but the majority of them are most time genuine people that actually seeking for good reasons as to why they are migrating. I agree with you that Italy produces some of the best footballers for their national team and the issue of immigration might just be a surface problem.
This idealogy of when borders are opened people's minds first races to the influx of criminals is one that should be put to consideration because in the actual sense to start with, no place is void of criminality and you cannot be too careful, moreover the fear of the influx of criminals should not overshadowed the migrational benefits that could come to the country in actual sense because that is actually the situation but many will want to push it away because they believe they should be safe first meanwhile too much safety could be danger.