Italy's baby-faced premier Renzi celebrates first year in office

Rome

IN football terms, Matteo Renzi looks more like a scuffling midfielder than a predatory striker.

Politically, Italy's baby-faced prime minister knows exactly where the goal is and how to find it.

A year after seizing power via a leadership coup in the ruling Democratic Party (PD), business leaders and experts credit Mr Renzi, 40, with significant progress on an ambitious agenda of reform aimed at shaking Italy out of decades of political and institutional inertia.

In the process, the energetic former mayor of Florence hopes to revive a moribund economy in the face of what some economists see as a chronic competitiveness problem.

But uncertainty over whether he can get his policies over the line is his biggest challenge as he prepares to raise a glass o…