Will the Serie A of the nineties ever return? – to be clear: the richest, most exciting championship, followed in the world. Spoiler: no. The gap that the Premier League has created over the years with the other leagues – a largely economic gap, and obviously everything derives from there – is objectively irrecoverable, for us and for the other European leagues. To correct itself in the medium to long term, the current scenario will necessarily have to find alternative solutions – Super League, pan-European championship, or whatever you prefer – on pain of an increasingly evident imbalance.
At the same time, we put behind us the worst period of Serie A, the one immediately following the last fires of our enjoyment era, because we were the richest and most beautiful to watch. 2006, with the victory of the World Cup, represented a very high point for our football, but also of transformation, with Calciopoli and the relegation of Juventus, in an economic scenario that was rapidly changing: the Moratti and Berlusconi were still strong and dominant, and between 2007 and 2010 Milan would have won two Champions League, but it was really the latest offshoot of a football that would soon disappear.
Soon, Italian football would be rediscovered naked: the economic model that had worked for so many years – and was the only one imaginable – no longer held up. The Abramovichs, the Mansours, the Al-Khelaifi would have shattered the monetary foundations of our football, no longer able to compete with these moneyed Molochs. Italian football would have gone through a difficult and depressing period of crisis, clearly showing the inability, in the short term, to react adequately to the transformations that the entire European football was going through.
Today Italian football has certainly lagged behind, but at least in recent years it has been able to find formulas to return to exercising a certain sporting and economic attractiveness, as also confirmed by the arrival of numerous foreign capitals, now in the majority, in Serie A. Teams like Milan and Inter, after nefarious and in some ways comical years, have returned to embody the nobility of Italian football, with benefits for all the appeal of the league. Ten years ago and even less, the two Milanese were reduced to a minimum, with unlikely technical projects, shaky benches, blunt points. There has been much talk of “Banter era” for the two teams, recalling the most tragic outcomes.
That definition, however, can also apply to that period of Serie A in the aftermath of the decline of the empire built in previous decades: a championship with very little appeal, non-existent competitiveness in Europe, with fewer and fewer big names, teams built in bulk, campaigns purchases worthy of the worst alcoholic Fantasy Football auction, and defenders who deliberately decided to score in their own goal. That period, which goes immediately after Inter’s Champions League victory and reaches Allegri’s first Champions League final (from 2010/11 to 2014/15, therefore), is in effect the “Banter era ”Serie A. Do you remember her? You should, before criticizing what our championship has become today, even with all its limitations.
Parmaggedon
In 2013/14 Parma finished sixth in the standings: it is the best result for the Emilians in ten years, something that, in a team that has dusted off Antonio Cassano’s talent for the umpteenth time, portends golden horizons. Instead, the failure to obtain the Uefa license to participate in the Europa League is the preamble to one of the worst shanties in the history of Italian football: enormous financial difficulties emerge, with president Ghirardi who is later convicted of fraudulent bankruptcy. The team is struggling, while figures from the 1980s comedy orbit around the company, see that Giampietro Manenti with his company (?) In Slovenia who gives memorable interviews about the money that “is coming”. It is not even known if the team is able to leave for the next trip, captain Lucarelli announces that the players will cover the costs in order to complete one of the most surreal championships in the history of Serie A. Parma ends very last, bankrupt and forced to start over by the amateurs.
The hand of the coach
Alberto Malesani’s last time in Serie A: January 2014, the newly promoted Sassuolo in danger of calling him to reverse the trend. Malesani manages to lose five out of five games, so he is sacked. Sassuolo retraces its steps and recalls Di Francesco, who is saved at the end of the season.
Thus passes the glory of Sampdoria
If a good day starts in the morning, Rosenberg’s goal that stops Sampdoria from the Champions League group stage at the very last is already enough to foresee the rest. That is: a team that falls from fourth place to Serie B in a single season, moreover burdened by the farewell of Cassano who had sent Garrone to that country for a little party in which he just did not like to participate. Poor Di Carlo’s Sampdoria sinks into the standings, until Cavasin is called, who in ten games wins just one and loses seven. In addition, the goal that crushes Sampdoria’s hopes was scored by Boselli in the Genoa derby, in the 97th.
The important thing is to participate
Eighty-four: goals conceded in thirty-eight matches from Pescara 2012/13.
Gasp!
Poor Gasperini at Inter wanted Vidal, Nainggolan, Palacio and Sanchez. They took no one from him, they made his life impossible and after four games (and zero wins) they sent him back home despite a two-year contract. Post scriptum: those four players really would have dressed Inter Milan afterwards.
It wasn’t me
After Totti’s jokes, Mazzarri’s apologies. “We took a wrong approach, then today was also Cavani’s birthday”, after Napoli-Viktoria Plzen 0-3. “It was normal for the team to drop in ten and then it also started to rain”, after Inter 2-2 Verona. «Thursday was very cold, but here we found a summer climate», after Palermo 1-1 Inter. And then of course: “We should change the rules a little: every few corners hit, every number of poles, a goal should be awarded”.
In the purple corner
Have you ever seen a manager punch their own player in the middle of a match? Yes, of course you have seen it, it was in Serie A, Delio Rossi versus Adem Ljajic in Fiorentina-Novara in 2012.
For a bunch of dollars
“He was going out, Andre,” Gillet tells him. Andrea Masiello has just put in his own goal: it is the Puglia derby between Bari and Lecce, it is the 2-0 goal of the Giallorossi. Bari are already relegated after an anomalous season: players on the run, suspected injuries, defenders who rejoice after having conceded a goal. “Andre” knew that the ball was going out, but he intervened, as he said to the investigators, “to be able to definitively crystallize the defeat for Bari and to be able to obtain the payment promised to me”. It is the most sensational case of an investigation that raises a wave of match-fixing between Serie A and Serie B.
A coach a day keeps the doctor away
Another team capable of sudden falls: Zamparini’s Palermo. From fifth place in 2009/10, the Italian Cup final the year following the 2012/13 relegation. With four coach changes: Sannino from the first day to the third, Gasperini from the fourth to the twenty-third, the good Malesani parked for three days, then Gasperini again for two days, the return of Sannino for the final sprint.
Just them
There are people who still believe that Cristiano Ronaldo was not up to Juventus, but in the Banter Era – where even the bianconeri were the undisputed team of reference at the top – even the Italian champion team did not miss the so-called effect shots: that Juve could boast a potentially deadly Bendtner-Anelka couple in the attacking department. Eleven matches in two in the league, zero goals. Top scorer at the end of the season: Arturo Vidal, a midfielder.
The hot summer of President De Laurentiis
Of course, the draw of the calendars is always a good moment, tension, curiosity, and then the idea that the championship is really about to begin. But then? Puff, that’s it. It would take more Aurelio De Laurentiis moments screaming “you are shit” and then runs away on a scooter, year of grace 2011. A few weeks earlier he presented Gokhan Inler, the hit of the year – we are still in full Banter Era – putting him a lion head mask.
Psychic iturbe
At the time, for players like him, empires were built and kingdoms fell apart. Antonio Conte, who had not obtained it, decided to leave. In Rome wonders were prophesied in series. He was Juan Iturbe, the player around whom the most important clubs in our Serie A raged. In the summer of 2014 Iturbe was a step below Messi. In the same hours, in Germany, Wolfsburg bought Kevin De Bruyne with a few euros less.
The harsh law of goals
In recent years, Milan have written dark chapters, but the worst was in the search for the attacker: Matri, Pazzini, Destro, Niang, Torres, one flop after another. Between 2013/14 and 2014/15, all this firepower produced ten overall league goals.
Ghostbusters
To the opponents of the Var, assorted technologies, pseudo-violets, etc.: Muntari’s ghost goal in Milan-Juventus. More Banter It was like that.
Ouch serva Italy
In 2013/14 Alessio Cerci, with the Torino shirt, is an iradiddio able to be the benchmark of all left foot outsiders in the world: after all, many, witnessing the barely decent performance of a certain Arjen Robben, they argue that that Dutchman there is very reminiscent of Cerci. After saying goodbye to Toro, Cerci goes to Madrid, on the Atlético side, and his girlfriend reigns supreme: “Let’s go to the football that counts.”
All for half the price
2014/15 packs a horrible eighth place for a horrible Inter protagonist of a horrible market. Arrivals: Francesco Bardi, Vid Belec, Tommaso Berni, Raffaele Di Gennaro, Andrea Bandini, Simone Benedetti, Cristiano Biraghi, Mirko Crociati, Dodô, Marco Ferrara, Matteo Frigerio, Jacobo Galimberti, Eloge Yao, Ibrahima Mbaye, Simone Pasa, Giorgio Piacentini, Matías Silvestre, Lukas Spendlhofer, Nemanja Vidić, Giovanni Zaro, Rodrigo Alborno, Niccolò Belloni, Marco Benassi, Daniel Bessa, Mattia Bonetto, Lorenzo Crisetig, Alessandro Cannataro, Alfred Duncan, Gianmarco Gabbianelli, Assane Gnoukouri, Diego Laxalt, Gary Medel, Yann Medel ‘Vila, Joel Obi, Ezequiel Schelotto, Andrea Romanò, Stefano Tonsi, Ishak Belfodil, Riccardo Bocalon, Bocar Djurmo, Adama Fofana, Wilfried Gnoukouri, Youssou Lo, Samuele Longo, Davide Mariani, Diego Mella, Pablo Osvaldo, Ismael Sanogo, Tidjane Baldé , Christian Silenzi. Only in summer. In winter Lukas Podolski.
Showtime
A Chievo of great emotions in the 2014/15 season: twenty-eight goals scored in thirty-eight games. Worst defense of the championship. Ah: fourteenth place, +9 on the relegation zone.
The SottoScala of football
Unforgettable derby in Milan, the excellence of Italian football, staged on November 23, 2014. Lineups: Milan: Diego Lopez, Rami, Zapata, Mexes, De Sciglio, Bonaventura, Essien, Muntari (31 ′ st Poli), El Shaarawy , Menez, Torres (28 ‘st Honda). Inter: Handanovic, Nagatomo, Ranocchia, Juan Jesus, Dodò, Guarin, Kuzmanovic, Obi (27 ‘st Hernanes), Kovacic (49’ st M’Vila), Palacio, Icardi (44 ‘st Osvaldo). It ends 1-1 with goals from Menez and Obi. Technical comment by Sandro Mazzola: «Inter players don’t know how to play».
