RGdot

Tag: Serie A

  • 2019-2020 Kickoff

    2019-2020 Kickoff

    With August approaching the long European seasons that start in August are about to begin. The 2019-2020 season will end with the scattered and complex Euro 2020 in June of next year. For now however the major European leagues and their immense wealth will start the season, some teams with many changes and more to come by the time the transfer window closes.

    The 2019-2020 English Premier League will kick off on August 9th with the three promoted teams, Norwich City, Sheffield United and Aston Villa, seemingly taking different approaches to life back in the top league. Aston Villa, notably, are on a spending spree and unlike the other two teams are very busy in the transfer window. Reigning champions and runners up, Manchester City and Liverpool are likely to challenge for the title again. Arsenal and Manchester United may not be challengers, they are both still a step or two behind. Chelsea with new coach in former player Frank Lampard look to be starting a new cycle. However, Tottenham, with the arrival of highly rated midfielder Tanguy Ndombele ,will push the top two once again.

    The Spanish La Liga will start on August 17th with Barcelona, Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid providing the inevitable rivalry. Both Madrid teams have been busy spenders and Griezmann’s move from Atletico to Barcelona will mean all three teams have made big splashes. Osasuna, Granada and Mallorca are the promoted teams.

    Serie A’s three promoted teams are Lecce, Brescia and Verona. The top teams’ headlines have been of the coaching variety with Max Allegri leaving Juventus and Luciano Spalletti leaving Inter. They were replaced with Maurizio Sarri and Antonio Conte respectively. The new season starts on August 24th and will likely be dominated by Juventus once again. Napoli and Inter can be considered close rivals but will they last the season or collapse sometime in the middle again?

    Bundesliga starts on August 16th with a busy Borussia Dortmund making another attempt at dethroning Bayern. The reigning champions are a younger team with Franck Ribery and Arjen Robben gone. FC Koln, Paderborn and for the first time in their history Union Berlin are in the Bundesliga.

    Holland’s Eredivisie will feature a weakened Ajax. The champions sold two of their Champions League semi final team stars. With Matthijs de Ligt and Frenkie de Jong leaving for big money the team will have new restart to tackle. PSV are likely the only challengers but Ajax will not have fallen much behind their 2018-2019 form. Twente, RKC Waalwijk and Sparta Rotterdam rejoin the top league which starts early on August second.

    The 2019-2020 Primeira Liga features a team promoted via a court decision. Gil Vicente won the right to return to top league and are joined by Famalicao and Pacos de Ferreira. Benfica stormed to the top after January and have sold Joao Felix, their super star to be teenager, for over €120 million to Atletico Madrid. The Porto challenge will be as fierce as ever and Sporting will be in the mix but likely to be weakened because of the departure of the soon to be sold Bruno Fernandes. The new season will start on August 9th.

  • The Italian Mess: Italian Football’s Decline

    The Italian Mess: Italian Football’s Decline

    Roberto Baggio was unable to kick start a change in Italian football

    The Italian league and the administrators running the league and the teams have been accused of plenty and the teams don’t have the best reputation when it comes to promoting youth, there are exceptions but notables ones like Marco Verratti end up in France to get regular game time.

    What some have recognized the Italians need is a more structured youth system. In some other countries like Spain, Portugal and Germany B or II teams of top level teams play in the second or lower divisions. It is also important that the teams realize and agree collectively that youth promotion and emphasis on it can also be cheaper and better. Much like it happened in Germany where Bundesliga teams, in partnership with the federation, took action after German national team’s failures in the late 1990s and early 2000s. As an almost direct result German football rose again and has been consistently successful in the last decade or so.

    Attempts have been made in Italy to improve this and to set up such structures. The national team, the Azzurri, have done relatively well at times under good coaching and the talent that is nevertheless plentiful. Winning the World Cup in 2006 and reaching the final of Euro 2012 to name two such successes in the not too distant past. However the negatives and shortcomings have never been eliminated.

    Back in 2010 Roberto Baggio, the famous and legendary Italian player, was given the task of reforms within the FIGC (The Italian federation), in particular youth development. He quit less than three years later unable to enact much, the Italian system resisting major changes. Not long after that Carlo Tavecchio was elected to be the president of the federation. Promises were made, crucially of reducing the size of the Serie A to 18 teams from 20. However Tavecchio was also of the old ways and was racist as well, using banana eating to describe some players and later conversations of him regarding gays and jews were leaked as well. His choice to appoint Giampiero Ventura to follow Antonio Conte in 2016 was seen as a mistake and so it proved to be. After the failure to reach the World Cup for the first time in 60 years they both resigned or were forced out.

    The elections to replace Tavecchio have now failed to produce a result. After four ballots no one was able to gain the necessary number of votes (50%+ required for the fourth ballot) and the recognized change candidate, former Roma player Damiano Tommasi, fell after the first ballot. Sooner or later someone new will be in charge and the next federation president will have the opportunity to make changes. A proper youth strategy and set up and boldly pushing in a reduction in Serie A’s size to 18 teams to allow for more training and recuperation time plus a less congested fixture list are at least two steps forward. He would also have the important decision of choosing the next national team coach. That coach would hopefully have more ready players at his disposal and uses them well.

  • AC Milan At A Crossroads

    AC Milan At A Crossroads

    As another football (soccer) season nears its end AC Milan fans are realizing that their beloved club is at a cross roads.
    For years financed and saved by billionaire Silvio Berlusconi the financial excesses seem to have ended for the said owner. Expectations however have not and as much as the fans are entitled to demand a continuation of the previous spending ways to compete not only in the Serie A but also in European leagues (Champions League and its wealth) it is up to the owner to do as he wishes and if he is unable or unwilling to do so to consider selling the team.

    The major issue and complaint is more than just the (lack of) spending however, it is how the club is run day to day and how the motto of ‘the most successful club’ (in terms of number of domestic and European trophies won) is used as a justification that the team can remain successful. The club is also notoriously stubborn in remaining loyal and to hold on to some players whose best days have passed. Some of those players have high wages which is not helping in these days of restrained spending. At the same time some highly useful assets have been sold (Kaka to Real Madrid) and the threat of further departures (Pato to any one of Chelsea and Real Madrid), to ‘balance the books’ remains.
    The 2009/10 season brought a new and inexperienced coach, following the departure of the sometimes maligned but mostly successful Carlo Ancelotti to Chelsea, in Leonardo. The former player who had been at the club as a scout and major negotiator for South American transfers since 2002 was thrust into the coaching position and showed a great deal of intelligence and calm not only in tactics and formation but in dealing with the meddling management and owner wanting to not only dictate lineups but to demand wins despite an aging and weakened squad. Of course there was stubbornness from the coach in insisting on an attacking 4-3-3 formation that resulted in an (early) exit from the Champions League at the the hands of this writer’s least favorite team, Manchester United and an almost as embarrassing wipe out by one of this writer’s other least favorite teams, Inter Milan, in the league. Both teams exploited the team’s weakness and tactics’ naivety to counter attack and kill any chance of a good result.
    Recent days have seen reports, not officially confirmed, that the said coach Leonardo might leave because he is being pushed or otherwise and he has admitted to a rocky relationship with the owner. The future of the team is even further in question, the owner is thought to be searching for a yes man type of coach and as mentioned may be tempted into selling Pato and others for even more cash. The squad meanwhile is depleted because of injuries and that has not helped the team when it almost seemed like they may even have a chance at the title this season. This exasperated situation has come despite the daily rumour mill linking highly useful players like Milos Krasic (from CSKA Moscow) and Edin Dzeko (from Wolfsburg) to Milan but it seems unlikely the money for such transfers will be made available and even if they are the team requires more depth and defensive help as well.
    It is perhaps time for a new ownership, one that knows the value of investments. It is not necessary to go into a Chelsea or Real Madrid type of spending spree but a more intelligent yet sustained approach at presenting a team worthy of the traditions and value of the club, incidentally one that is still among the top earners in the world. One can name players who perhaps should be let go and others that would serve the team well but above all else this team has the wealth and power to remain among the elites of Europe and the world, if it wants to.