On UEFA Coefficients and Serie A's Progress

Papu Gomez celebrates Atalanta's equalizer vs Lyon in the Europa League

In the late summer of 2002, the question of whether Serie A could still be considered the best league in the world seemed more pressing than ever.  No Italian club had reached the quarter-final of the Champions League in the season that had just ended, the national team had disintegrated at the World Cup, and the league's star Ronaldo had left Inter for Real Madrid.

In truth, the question had been asked for years, quietly or stridently, and at the start of the 2002-03 season the answer seemed obvious: no. 

Eight months later, however, Inter, Juventus and Milan were in the semi-finals of the Champions League, and journalists had to revise obituaries.  On May 28, 2003, Old Trafford hosted the first all-Italian Final between Milan and Juventus.  Serie A was vindicated, robed in the glitter of UEFA's premier event, but the game was played in the cagey spirit for which Italian football is stereotyped and maligned, as if the two clubs were determined to torture their detractors, slowly, with flints and chisels.  The Final was rarely carved open.  Milan won on penalties, and Italian football's critics paid them--for being too quick to close the door, to forget the qualities that make Italian football competitive and relevant.

Today, fourteen years later, the question of whether Serie A is the best league in the world has a clear answer yet again: no.  The criteria that many use to arrive at this conclusion varies--entertainment, star power, financial health et al.--but more and more are now using what only a small core of fans did several years ago, the UEFA coefficient system (for a quick explanation of the system check out Bert Kassies's valuable site).

Every Champions League and Europa League matchday, I become a better person and cheer for all Italian clubs.  The reason is sentimental but can also be expressed as a formula.  This season, for every win Italy gets 2 (for a draw 1, for a loss 0) divided by 6 (total number of teams allotted) points, or 0.333 points.  So, this past matchday, Italy managed 5 wins (Milan, Napoli, Juventus, Lazio, and Roma) and 1 draw (Atalanta), totaling 1.833 points.  As a result, Italy climbed up to third spot in the UEFA coefficient rankings, ahead of Germany, and now sits tantalizingly close to England (Spain are far, far ahead).

The meaning of that success has few practical consequences in the immediate term.  Late last year, UEFA announced that the top 4 leagues (Spain, England, Italy, and Germany) would enjoy four representatives in the Champions League from the 2018-19 anyway.  But the coefficient ranking nonetheless quantifies a league's success, setting aside the gnashing of teeth and making numeric the vexed and emotional 'which league is best' debate. 

UEFA Coefficient rankings (image taken from Bert Kassies's site located here)

The UEFA coefficient system does have its flaws.  For example, it weighs victories in the Europa League the same as those in the Champions League, with only bonus points awarded upon progression in the latter to compensate partially for the calculation.  But the system remains the closest thing we have to a deterministic criteria for judging the health and strength of various leagues across Europe.

It also matters for the league's vanity, for its self-esteem.  After every matchday, it is now common for Italian journalists on social media to remind us where Serie A is in the rankings.  And this season, no one expected Serie A to be more than 3.5 points ahead of Germany.  There have been some performances of distinction as well, like Atalanta flattening Everton 3-0 in the Europa League a few weeks ago, and earning a point against Lyon in France just this past week, or like Napoli totally dominating Nice over two legs in the Champions League play-offs. 

This season may be Serie A's best chance to solidify its position in third, and even replace England in second when you consider both the quality of their representation, and that they will have one more representative next season (meaning a higher number to divide the points by, and thus a lower return for a win, for those keeping track).  Milan and Lazio should go deep into the tournament (Milan's ludicrous 3-2 win over Rijeka on Thursday notwithstanding), and Atalanta have started convincingly with four points from their two toughest games.  And then there are Juventus, who have played two losing Champions League Finals in the last two years, but who have nonetheless earned Italy valuable points, and should earn more this year.

Serie A may not be able to repeat what it did in 2002-03 in the Champions League, but the feats of 2014-15 are achievable, and, hopefully, surpassable.  That season, Italy earned 19 points.  Lazio and Napoli played the semi-finals of the Europa League, and Juventus the Final of the Champions League.  The early signs are promising. 

Lotito and the Morality of Numbers

Lotito basks in Lazio's Supercup win against Juventus

In their Sunday edition, La Repubblica previewed Milan vs Lazio as a match between two clubs at the opposite ends of the financial spectrum.  It was a case of a deficit vs. surplus.  Milan had closed the transfer campaign at -165 million euros, and Lazio at +37 million euros.

To a degree, La Repubblica were buttressing what Lazio owner and president Claudio Lotito had told  Il Messagero  in an interview a couple of days earlier.  In issuing a thinly-veiled attack on Juventus, Lotito also branded Keita Balde Diao's behaviour as 'extortion.' Juventus knew the player's contract was running out in 2018, and that Diao only wanted to play for them, so they duly exploited that fact when low-balling Lotito, who refused to sell the player at any other price than the one he had in mind.  As it turned out, Diao went to Monaco for more than thirty million euros, twice what Juventus were offering, thus vindicating Lotito's summer-long intransigence.

Tellingly, the Lazio president also boasted about his club's books, pointing out that Lazio would close the financial year with a 14 million euros profit.  It was the kind of money-minded response that rankles the Lazio support, many of whom still remember the headier days of Sergio Cragnotti's ownership, during which Lazio, most notably, won a Scudetto in 2000.

Lotito is a different president, one who has not privileged financial health over sporting success, but one who has always sought a fine balance between the two.  Cragnotti's, of course, is a cautionary tale.  When his company Cirio was in ruins, so were Lazio.  Lotito operates as the antithesis of that approach, a counterpoint to excess.

La Repubblica, then, were not just laying bare numbers down to highlight disparities in accounting, but were also making a familiar argument more subtly, namely that fiscal responsibility is also a moral one, and that Lazio in a way were already moral victors before a ball had been kicked at the Stadio Olimpico.   That they crushed Milan 4-1 with Lotito beaming in the stands, vindicated once again, was according to this line of reasoning a just conclusion.

Milan CEO Marco Fassone has already once forcefully defended his club's finances against Roma owner Pallotta's charge of "madness" this past summer.  Milan are in transition, looking to get back to where they were, and have spent with a plan in mind.  But fairly or unfairly (mostly unfairly) the numbers will permeate everything that they do this season. 200 million euros spent means you can't lose 4-1 to Lazio.  That sum subsumes all other considerations like whether the defeat is due to geometry (3-5-2 vs 4-3-3) or chemistry (Montella's insistence that the team has yet to gel).

Lotito's Lazio, on the other hand, can be a paradigm for Serie A's middle class, one that is simply not content to eke out an existence, but to flourish despite the spending of clubs above them.  It's not an easy task to achieve the ideal balance between finances and success.  Take Fiorentina, as an example.  The Viola were rescued by the Della Valle family years ago, but just suffered a miserable season, and lost key players over the summer like Borja Valero (Inter), Federico Bernardeschi (Juventus), and Nikola Kalinic (Milan).

In contrast, Lotito has kept or introduced Lazio's key elements, while offloading players without whom the club can still win.  Lazio have already won the Supercup this season against Juventus, and the way they dismantled Milan suggests they are genuine contenders for the Champions League places--and all that without spending much.

Players like Ciro Immobile, Sergej Milinković-Savić, and Lucas Levia were the stars on Sunday, and didn't cost hefty sums.   Simeone Inzaghi, a former Lazio player and youth team coach, the man now being lauded as one of the best coaches in Italy, was hastily appointed at the helm when Marco Bielsa resigned after just two days, two summers ago.

Lotito was defiant in the face of protests then as well, insisting that Inzaghi was the right man for the job because he reflected the club's values.  His methods have been proven right once again, and he also has the numbers to show for it.

Faith in Five

Udinese celebrate Antonio Di Natale's equalizer against Celtic

Perhaps it was a rare moment of patriotism, or even a rarer moment of foresight.  When it comes to the club level, Italian football is not normally known for either, and yet what many Italian football fans realized on Thursday, as Udinese played out the dying seconds of the draw that they needed against Celtic to enter the next phase of the Europa League, was that five Italian teams would be in European competition in the new year.  For once, Italian participants in the Europa League, an officially reinvigorated second-tier competition that already seems moribund, put in the graft without any promise of lucrative reward.

Like it or not, as I have persistently written in the past, the Europa League counts just as much as the Champions League when it comes to that well-concealed UEFA coefficient points system, a system that has pervasive consequences for how much money a league can hope to see from the Champions League.  Italy has already lost its fourth Champions League spot, which makes the top three spots in the Serie A coveted real estate.  For this year though, Napoli's searing run through Manchester City has been the apotheosis of Serie A's campaign in Europe.  Quite simply, Milan and Inter have not impressed as much, and that is even after you take into account the Rossoneri's theatrical, for all the good reasons, 3-2 loss to Barcelona.

What Lazio and Udinese have done in the Europa League is crucial work for the Italian bid, leaving Serie A in a position to amass a points total of 15 or greater this year.  Doing so, will let them steer clear of France, who are menacing in fifth spot, but now only have two representatives left in this year's competition--Marseille and Lyon in the Champions League.  Also, if Italy do want to reclaim the third spot in the rankings, then beating Germany this year could be foundational for that challenge.  The Bundesliga only have four representatives left in the competition, and when you consider Bayer Leverkusen are up against Barcelona, Italy's chances to charge ahead of Germany this year seem promising.

Currently, Italy is on 9.500 points (see table below), already about two points behind the total they managed last year.  Remember, a win in UEFA competition for Italy means 2 points (a draw means 1) divided by 7, the total number of positions that Italy is allotted (consider how important, then, it was for Milan to hold onto their 2-0 lead against Viktoria Plzen on Matchday 6, or for Inter to beat Trabzonspor on Matchday 1).

In the Europa League, Udinese have been handed a somewhat easier task of going past Greek side PAOK Saloniki in the round of thirty-two, while Lazio come up against far more daunting opposition in Atletico Madrid.  In the Champions League, the Italian contingent should feel confident.  For one, Napoli and Milan have avoided Real Madrid, and secondly, they are up against sides that they seem able to beat.  Milan will want to avenge the elimination at the hands of Arsenal in the 2007-08 campaign, and they should be optimistic of restitution with a sturdier backline, a competent, at times spectacular, frontline, and a revitalized midfield, which may have problems and some deficiencies, but is nonetheless equipped to play a containing game.  Napoli, on the other hand, will be brimming with self-belief after defeating Premiership champions-elect Manchester City this year to effectively qualify for the knockout stages; surpassing Chelsea definitely does not seem impossible.  Inter's clash with Marseille seems the easiest, and the most conducive to put more distance between Italy and France in the rankings.

With five Italian clubs still in the European pursuit, Italy joins England and Spain in the group of countries with the most representatives left in UEFA competition.  Given that Manchester United and Manchester City have dropped down into the Europe's second-tier, winning the Europa League will be much harder for Lazio and Udinese.  However, the goal should be at least the quarter-final stage for one, if not both, clubs.  As for the Champions League, a sustained run for all three clubs will emphatically put Italy back in contention, and redress some of the European heartache and frustrations of recent years.  There are certainly many structural issues--stadia ownership being chief among them--with which Italy has to contend to bolster its chances in Europe in the long run.  However, while as a brand Italian football may be a bit behind, as a quintessential football product, a result of a school and philosophy, it is still registering.

UEFA Coefficient Rankings taken from Bert Kassies's website

Serie A's Europa League Fight

The right noise...Edy Reja

Finally, at long last, Lazio coach Edy Reja said the right things moments before his side's crunch encounter with Romanian club Vaslui in the Europa League: "We will play a competitive team in Romania."  Speculation suggests that Miroslav Klose will start from the outset as will Djibril Cisse and Hernanes.  

Oh wait, did you forget? Yes, the Europa League is happening right now.  This week, the Europa League theoretically had the European limelight to itself since the Champions League, its richer, better looking, more popular cousin, was off until a reappearance next week.  And yet, earlier this week, there was scarcely any mention in the Italian media of the two matches that Udinese and Lazio had to play.  Most of the focus, perhaps somewhat justifiably, was on Napoli's game against Juventus on Tuesday.

For the future of Italian football, the Europa League is solemnly significant.  As I have written previously, it is not only that Italy have dropped behind the Bundesliga that is the concern, but also that France and Portugal are making inroads on the fourth spot in the UEFA coefficient ranking, a spot currently held by an increasingly nervous looking Serie A.  Well, at least, you would like to think the league is nervous, and not fatally complacent.

"When it comes to the Europa League, our clubs rest players," said the typical harbinger of doom and gloom, Milan vice-president Adriano Galliani, earlier this season.  "This is why we're behind Cyprus this year."

Europa League Group D standings taken from uefa.com

Lest the calcio lover is anxious about a power shift from Rome, Milan, and Turin to Nicosia, Limassol, and Larnaka, we need to put things into a more ruddy context. Udinese's 0-0 draw with Rennes last night means they only have to avoid defeat against Celtic at home on December 15th to make it into the next round.  And if Lazio defeat Vaslui in Romania today, then the Biancoceleste will also qualify. 

Europa League Group I standings taken from uefa.com

However, while these games do not seem monumentally difficult, it is the ability for Italian clubs to make them difficult that is unnerving.  Udinese should have come home with the three points yesterday, but Francesco Guidolin rested players like Antonio Di Natale and Giampiero Pinzi. Notwithstanding that, only the upright denied what seemed a certain goal for Antonio Floro Flores.  Guidolin could argue that it was not only he who rested players yesterday.  Harry Redknapp did too, and Tottenham duly lost at home to PAOK Saloniki.  However, the Premier League isn't fighting for its face, its identity, and its spot at the summit of the coefficient rankings, a spot that looks assured for years to come.

Yet, when Guidolin was asked whether he would stop rotating players if Udinese made it out of their group, he remained non-committal, responding with a "we will see."

As thrilling as they can be, victories like the one Napoli claimed over Manchester City in the Champions League will not solely decide where Italian football sits in a few years.  There is a fight for prominence going on, away from the glare and riches of the Champions League, and it counts.  That fight is in the Europa League--in the back-alley and by the dockside.  Serie A better be ready for it.