As soon as Wayne Rooney diverted a header into the bottom corner of the net and extended Manchester United’s aggregate lead at a packed Old Trafford on Wednesday night, the writing was on the wall for AC Milan. The Milanese club simply didn’t possess the necessary extra gear to mount a fightback and United cruised to a deserved 4-0 victory to progress to the last eight of the Champions League.
True, Milan are a pale shadow of the once all-conquering side of the 1990′s which was graced by such luminaries as Marco Van Basten, Frank Rijkaard, Ruud Gullit, George Weah, Franco Baresi… the list goes on. Silvio Berlusconi built a club that dominated Europe and regularly topped one of the strongest domestic leagues in the world during a golden period for Italian football.
There was a time when every weekend players of the calibre of Diego Maradona, Michel Platini and Liam Brady could be found plying their trade in packed stadiums the length and breadth of Italy. The AC Milan of today does not possess such a strong squad but rather an ageing collection of once former great players which are now unable to match the power and pace of the top English and Spanish sides.
There are numerous reasons the Italian game has fallen into sharp decline. A series of betting and bribery scandals that rocked well-established clubs such as Juventus gave Italian football a bad name. Many of the Italian stadiums have been allowed fall into such a state of disrepair that many fans have been put off attending matches resulting in a dramatic drop in attendances.
Worse still, the growing influence of ultras or hooligan factions within Italian clubs (controlling tickets sales, turning up at training sessions threatening players after poor performances) has no doubt turned many top class internationals away from signing for Italian clubs.
But the main reason Italian football has lost out to the likes of the English Premier League and Primera Liga in Spain over the past number of years is down to money. Italian football does not enjoy the same lucrative rewards that the Premier League does with Sky TV. As a result, few of the top Italian clubs can afford to pay the increased wage demands or buy out the contracts of the world’s best players like Chelsea or Real Madrid can afford to.
Where Milan, Inter and Juventus once had the pick of the world’s elite players knocking on their door, now Real Madrid, Barcelona and the top clubs in England are more likely and rewarding destinations.
But for all its perceived failings there are signs of Italian revival. Consider Inter Milan’s domination of the domestic game and recent re-emergence as a force in the Champions League under Jose Mourinho. Fiorentina were hugely unlucky to lose out to Bayern Munich in the last sixteen round of the CL this season. Roma and Juventus are slowly re-building their squad after years in the wilderness of European football.
And then there’s the Italian knowhow.
Such is the Italians’ knowledge and success rate with treating injuries and prolonging players’ careers that Chelsea has modelled their own new medical / physiotherapy treatment centre based centre in Milan. When Carlo Ancelloti was recruited to take over the reigns at Stamford Bridge the former AC manager brought many of the famed Milan backroom medical team with him to help improve the fitness of Chelsea’s squad and help prevent long-term injuries.
The English media pundits who regularly deride the Italian game for being too slow and cumbersome forget that their international team has its best chance of winning a World Cup this coming summer thanks to the managerial skills of an Italian. Fabio Capello has instilled an Italian discipline on the English International setup and his knowledge and leadership skills have seen England emerge as outside contenders for the World Cup, something they never were under recent managers.
The small matter of Italy having claimed the World Cup as recently as 2006 is also conveniently forgotten when writing off Serie A. Whatever their domestic tribulations, Marcelo Lippi’s new-look Italian international side will still be expected to reach the latter stages of the tournament.
English and Spanish football remains at the forefront of European football for now thanks to the millions pumped in to the respective leagues by Satellite TV companies. As a result Italian football remains on the periphery and will continue to do so for some time until similar amounts are spent in Serie A.
But Italian football is far from dead. It’s just resting until it takes its rightful place at the top table of European football once again.
Ger McCarthy is author of Off Centre Circle, which chronicles the curious life of a West Cork League junior footballer.
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I think Berlusconi could be apportioned a lot of the blame for the decline in the Italian game. After all, he does own AC Milan and he is the Italian version of Rupert Murdoch….hence he is controlling the amount of broadcasting money going into Serie A
This is a good article making very relevent points. The trouble is that for Italian Football to take it’s rightful place again it needs the players that only Real, Barca and the moneyladen EPL sides can buy. I don’t know if I agree with the strength of the Spanish league, it is only Real and Barca, the rest really don’t do anything anymore. That makes the league more mickey mouse than Serie A in my book. Even Mourinho said that the quality going down Serie A is surprising and in no small part down to the tactical organisation of the smaller sides that so often sees them giving the lkes of Inter, AC, Juve and Roma a real run for their money and often getting a draw or even winning against the odds.
The problem now is there are no surprises in the CL, whoever is drawn against the EPL sides will inevitably get knocked out, for the last 2 seasons significantly it has been the Italian sides drawn against the EPL sides. What’s the betting that the Italian sides would still be in if they were drawn against non EPL sides? If Barca had drawn Man Utd or Chelsea had drawn Bayern, would the final 8 be different, all speculation. Problem is though it is now predictable, so I don’t bother watching, I just assume that 3 or 4 EPL sides will make the last 8 and at leas 2 the last 4 and we could have an all EPL final again….what a surprise.
Good to hear a reflective piece on the Italian game rather than the usual superiority complex that the English have with such matters. While all the above points are true, the biggest problem with Italian football is the archaic infrastructure thats still in place. None of the clubs own their own stadium and any proposed development is given short shift by the less accommodating local councils as Juventus know only too well with their situation with the Stadio delle Alpi. Its now extended to the squads themselves as seen by the sorry sight in Old Trafford last week of Milan fielding a team that should have been rejuvenated after the 2007 Final but due to lack of funding is left with the likes of Abbiati, Abate and Jan Huntelaar. The football that was nurtured from the days of Gullit, Van Basten and so on still exists there but the players and money needed to maintain it sadly is not.