Tuesday, March 15, 2011
What's left of Italian Football?
Did Inter Milan single handedly save Italian football today from the ultimate shame? Or maybe just for a couple weeks until they play their next opponents, who knows, but all we can say based on what we have seen is that Serie A is on the drop. As we all know by know Germany's Bundesliga will be 3rd ranked league in the world and will be granted that 4th CL spot opportunity while only 3 Serie A teams will be competing for European's Football most prestigious competition. The League will have a long way before it can get back to its dominating years like in the recent past such as the 90's, when Juventus was probably the most feared team. Now Juventus can't even scare Bari...or Cesena. Teams like Juventus and Roma are in disarray, Milan a top european team now hasn't been past the round of 16 since they last won it in 2007. Italy seems to be depending on growing teams such as Napoli and Udinese to carry the torch but it seems Napoli's Europa dream was short lived. Who knows how long Serie A will be in a slump? I sure can't give an answer but I will admit i like the direction teams such as Napoli and Udinese are heading and with a little more money invested in teams like Roma, Milan and Lazio...I surely believe they all will be reckoned with in the future. For now, and for the past few years Italy has been riding on Inter's back but how much longer can they carry it? Let's wait and see.....btw Super Win for Inter vs Bayern...amazing come back! Leave comments...tell me what you think.
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(Part 1 of 2)
ReplyDeleteAs a Juventus fan, this whole situation is really tough to swallow for me. My team, ever since being absolutely rocked by the farce known as "Calciopoli" has for obvious reasons struggled to reach the heights it once easily attained. To this day we continue to struggle against the poorest of opposition and unless our management and coach change/improve drastically we will continue to decline.
Roma is possibly the most inconsistent team I know of, on their day they can play some beautiful football with lots of goals, but generally are quite unreliable in defence, which causes them a lot of problems on a consistent basis. For this reason they lose to "weak" sides as they recently did in the CL.
AC Milan has so much flair and passing ability, technique and skill, but they just seem to lack any sort of backbone when their backs are up against the wall. Not surprising when you have to rely on spineless players like Ibrahimovic, who when in a tough situation never perform.
Sadly, Inter seems to be the only team capable of going into "6th gear" metaphorically when need be, and taking their game up to that champion-worthy level as they did today, they are my rivals and I dislike them strongly, but what an effort they put in today, total heart.
We cannot keep relying on them to carry Italy though, it's ironic that the one team (Inter) who managed to ruin the league by accusing Juventus of cheating in order to finally win some trophies is the only one able to even keep us from crumbling now, how very ironic.
Thankfully the Lazio’s, Udinese’s, Napoli’s and Palermo’s are closing the leagues skill gap, to the point that the league is ultra competitive throughout, almost all 20 teams are able to play decent football and get results. Even lowly Bari, Brescia, Cesena, Bologna and Lecce all took points off the giants such as Milan, Inter, (and being very, very gracious in calling my team giants these days), Juventus in the space of a week or two. This coupled with the introduction of new and improved infrastructure and stadia to teams such as Juventus and hopefully others to follow in the near future will hopefully return the Serie A to stardom, but it’s sadly a case of wait and see for a few years it seems.
On another note, I personally find it absolutely ridiculous that Germany will take Serie A’s 4th Champions League spot next year. You may think it’s because I am a Serie A fan and I am bias or what not, but think about it from any point of view, and you will realise it is beyond ridiculous. Actually I feel so strongly about this that if you are of the opposing opinion, although they say a person’s opinion can never be wrong, I would go as far as to say your opinion is incorrect (see Part 2)
My reasoning for this is quite straight forward. The coefficient works on a points system, the further a nation’s clubs go into the tournament, the more points they receive, simple enough. Now, with this known, Compare the past decade of champions/runners-up in the Champions League, as well as the teams that even got past the round of 16. It’s as clear as day. Bayern is the only German team in the entire decade to do well in the Champions League, runners-up in 1999, winning in 2001, and losing in the final in 2010. Ok, that’s a few points for Germany. However, just before and after the turn of the millennium, analyse the Italian team’s performances: Juventus win in 1996, Juventus are runners-up in 1997 AND 1998. Then to the 2000’s, AC Milan win in 2003, beating eventual Runners Up Juventus in the Final, then Milan follow this up with a runners up performance in 2005 and win again in 2007. And to cap it off Inter won last year in 2010. That’s 3 teams doing well for Italy as against 1 team doing well a lot less for Germany, hardly a comparison, a joke even. Not forgetting that when the Italian teams didn’t win it all or lose in the final, they would generally make it to at least the quarters or sometimes semi finals of the tournament.
ReplyDeleteHowever, for some unbelievable reason, Uefa has decided to rank the points system with the exact same importance for the league’s coefficient in the Europa League. (i.e you get the same amount of points towards the coefficient for winning the Europa League as you would for winning the Champions league) typing this out explanation out even makes me angry, so you can only imagine how stupid this rule actually is. For this reason, Germany is getting the 4th CL spot next year because their lesser teams have done better than the lesser Italian teams in the Europa league in the past decade or so. Absolutely absurd, just introduce another Europa League spot into Germany and strip Italy of a Europa League spot if you want to do this, as the leagues have little or no bearing on each other. Do not strip Serie A of a CL spot due to Germany’s good Europa League performances. Serie A has pretty much always been and even in recent years is miles better in the Champions League than Germany is, fact. Germany is Bayern and that’s it, whereas although Italy is struggling nowadays, it still has more worthy teams.
That’s a massive 2 posts for now so i’ll stop here and if i think of anything else i may post it later. Apologies for the length, respect.
Yeah chris I agree with you that it is a bit unfair and unfortunately to be honest.Germany's best and only challenger to the Champions League for the past 8 years have been Bayern Munich and Italy has out performed then easily but the coefficient system is not based on the decade you described.It works off of 5 year spells and within the past 5 years Bayern Munich has been a decent to good team in the CL also Germany has easily out performed you guys. In the past 5 years they have had a finalist semi finalist and on 3 occasions they have had 2 quarter finalists.So I believe Uefa is Ranking the overall league based on total European football. I like you way of dealing with it however, taking away your Europa spot and handing it to Germany since they are performing better in that competition. Maybe Uefa should of thought of such. Italy will have a fight on to get back their spot man. Dortmund on the rise,hamburg shalke all decent and stuttgart,bremen and wolfsburg all having bad spells but easily can bounce back
ReplyDeleteYeh dude, it is based on 5 years, and they generally have done pretty well in the 5. But at the same time Milan and Inter both won within that 5 year period, 2007 and 2010. 2 winners out of 5 CL years is big, considering the CL is hard as hell to win and teams never repeat. That's what i am saying, within 5 years we didnt do too bad results wise, within 10 we were beast and within 15 we were amazing. Whereas Bayern was good in spurts, at best.
ReplyDeleteJose Mourinho last week: "If I leave Madrid I'll go to a big club in England or Italy."
ReplyDeleteNotice the 1 league he doesn't mention? Coeffecient or not, Germany will never be considered bigger, better or more glamorous than Calcio. No chance. Doesn't matter how many times Stuttgart beat Slavia Prague or Poznan in the europa league LMAO.
Exactly, respect to whoever posted that thing above me. You are exactly right.
ReplyDeletewell mr.anonymous the premier league wasn't such a force to reckon with in Europe for years...only team that competed well was Liverpool and it was only in the late 90's that english teams got anything really from the competition...United had a terrible record in the competition since the 1999 treble and before!...chelsea was a no show until their were blessed by abramovic and teams like newcastle and leeds had their fairy tale runs that didn't last too long. The premier league was barely keeping pace with spain and italy until 2000 onwards when lots of money started being spent.If more money is put into the german league and they keep attracting players like ribery robben raul rvn diego (in wat little prime he had)VDV (wen he was there) and so on...they already have great infrastructure...I don't see why they can't be a top league in years to come...it is set up well for um. Maybe its wishful thinking on my part. who knows?
ReplyDeleteGerman league has great fans, impressive stadia and is on its way up. Italian teams have stagnated, admittedly Caliopoli has not helped whatsoever, I admire Juventus but I cannot comprehend many of the decisions they have made in the past few seasons, be it sackings or failing to extend or offer contracts and then some of the signings. They need to revamp the board and either stick with their manager or bring in yet another one and give him at least 2 seasons to create a distinct playing style.
ReplyDeletewith regards to Roma, they are subject to a takeover bid by a partner of John W henry (Liverpool FC and Boston Red Sox owner) so they will enter a new phase which will require patience from the fans and could be very difficult. Inter are the pick of the bunch although they were lucky they met a wasteful Bayern Munich and whoever draws them tomorrow will fancy their chances despite their status as defending champions. Milan are similar to their city neighbours, they have a strong squad but i think given time, they could challenge for the champions league title next year. They will need to make changes to their squad but Prince Boateng, Abate, Merkel, Silva and Pato are players for the future. One other thing Italy needs is an International Tournament, but i expect to see them challenging strongly in the champions league in the next few seasons, give Germany some time to show their skill.
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