What does Italian Football need to improve?
Serie A has been criticised a lot recently with people claiming Italian sides are no longer formidable opponents. Certainly if one were to look at recent Champions League results, and consider the fact that Serie A risks losing a Champions League place to the Bundesliga, this becomes an easy argument to make. However, it is important to point out that Italian teams have been slightly unlucky in recent years when it comes to their Champions League opponents. For example this year the Italian teams were handed some of the most difficult match-ups in the second round, with AC Milan facing Manchester United, Inter Milan going up against Chelsea, and Fiorentina (who went through first in their group) facing the toughest of the second place teams: Bayern Munich.
Nonetheless, this must not be seen as a good enough excuse considering that all the Serie A teams have the ability to beat their respective opponents in the second round. The problems that face Italian football are quite another, they are mostly down to the structure of their league as well as the infrastructure of their league. This is due to the fact that when one considers the financial aspect, Serie A teams are all ‘in the green’ with the exception of Inter Milan, which has some considerable debt. This is truly impressive when one considers the levels of debt present in the Premiership; the ‘Big Four’ for example have all got hundreds of millions of pounds worth of debt. In addition to this, the level of teams in Serie A is considerably higher than those in the Premiership. A fact that was recently re-iterated by Jose Mourinho in an interview for The Sunday Telegraph: “In Italy it is more difficult to play, because all the teams are much more organised from a tactical point of view than anywhere else in Europe.” Therefore, when considering the two factors above, one can understand that these are not the reasons for Italian football’s recent decline.
One might argue that the two most determining reasons are intertwined. Firstly the level of Serie A’s stadiums is not good enough. They are unable to withstand extreme weather conditions as they are lacking the modern technology now available to aid with such problems. Furthermore they are not spectator friendly, particularly in winter, as the majority do not have covered seating for example. The fact that stadiums are unable to withstand extreme weather conditions such as the snow that has recently hit much of Northern Italy means that Serie A is forced to take an extended winter break. The Premiership teams on the other hand, play throughout the Christmas and New Year period. Demetrio Albertini, Vice-President of the Italian Football Federation (FIGC) recently highlighted this exact point.
The fact that Serie A teams are forced to take an extended break during the Christmas and New Year period means that players lose their fitness levels. This is perhaps one of the explanations behind why Italian teams always seem to struggle with the pace of English teams; they are simply not fit enough. One might argue that if Serie A carried on playing through the holidays, their sides would be in better physical condition by the time of the Champions League second round in February.
The immediate conclusion that one can draw when examining the facts is that Serie A needs to re-build its stadiums. All teams must now follow Juventus’ lead regardless of weather Italy wins their bid to host the 2016 Euro; and build new spectator friendly and state of the art stadiums. This will certainly create a financial burden for several sides; however, the money they subsequently make from the inevitable improvement in ticket sales will make it worth it. Furthermore, such a project will aid Serie A to improve on every aspect including style of play. Yesterday Andrea Pirlo stated that the quality of pitches in Italy just wasn’t good enough, and therefore teams like Milan, which try to play exciting and beautiful football, find it more difficult. Better stadiums would lead to improved pitches, and hopefully improved styles of football from all teams.
