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

Holding On: Bundesliga Is Not The Only Competition for Serie A

Lazio rejoice during an unnecessarily complicated draw versus Vaslui

It wouldn't totally be a fall from grace. After all, Italian football has had well-documented problems ranging from lurid match-fixing to racism in stadia, so grace probably flatters Italy's footballing context.  However, as far as performances are concerned, the risultati, which Italian teams have often privileged over method and spectacle, Italian football is teetering.

The UEFA coefficient rankings may be imperfect, but they are far more reflective of a league's comprehensive health than the farcical FIFA rankings are of a nation's quality on the world stage.  And as far as the UEFA rankings are concerned, Serie A has not only fallen behind the Bundesliga, but is in genuine danger of being usurped by France's Ligue 1 and even Portugal's Primeira Liga (see table below the article).

The reason is simple: while an Italian team has won the Champions League twice in the last four years (Milan in 2007 and Inter in 2010), Italian clubs in general have treated the Europa League with derisive contempt.  This is even after they know that victories in the Europa League gain valuable points for the coefficients (see a detailed explanation of how coefficients work on this outstanding site). On the one hand, it is difficult to blame them.  The financial incentives to compete in what many see as a perfunctory sideshow to the Champions League are not significant enough to motivate a team like Udinese to field their preferred starting line-up (after all, the winner of the competition earns at best close to six million euros).  For example, Antonio Di Natale is being rested for the trip to Glasgow when Udinese play Celtic on Thursday.

However, even when Italian teams have fielded a semblance of a starting line-up, or at least a fairly competitive one, the results have been disappointing.  Lazio's 2-2 draw with Romanian outfit Vaslui on the first matchday was risible.  The starting line-up contained Federico Marchetti, Cristian Ledesma, Tommaso Rocchi, and new signing Djibril Cisse.  Sure, key players like Hernanes did not start, but Lazio should have, with all due respect to Vaslui, recorded an easy win with the players who did.

The mantra of "there are no easy games," which is ubiquitous in football journalism but remains suspicious, does not apply here.  While there is no way to peer into the hearts and minds of the players, what remains clear is that Lazio did not play with the same urgency and spontaneity they played with when they gained a far more creditable 2-2 draw against Milan only days earlier.

Somewhat similarly, Udinese's slight 2-1 win over Rennes at the Stadio Tardini was an exercise in salvaging three points that should never have been in jeopardy to begin with.  How can a team that came torturingly close to eliminating Arsenal in the qualifying rounds of the Champions League be on the backfoot against Rennes just a few weeks later? Admittedly, Rennes may resent my cavalier attitude, for they did finish sixth in Ligue 1, and were even in the top four for some of the 2010-11 season.

Fiorentina vs Rangers in the 2007-08 UEFA Cup

What is less arguable than my characterization of Rennes, however, is that Udinese did not play with the same urgency with which they did against Arsenal.  Yet, this alibi of there is no real financial incentive to play well in Europa League does not seem to have legitimacy in Germany or France, and the results are there for all to see.  Just take the last few seasons.  Hamburg and Werder Bremen were involved in the Europa League semi-finals during the 2008-09 season (Werder Bremen progressed to the final, only to be beaten by Shakhtar Donetsk), and PSG and Marseille were in the quarter-finals.  Only Udinese were in the quarter-finals from Italy.  Similarly, during the 2009-10 season, Hamburg and Wolfsburg were in the running during the quarter-finals, with Hamburg making it to the semi-finals.  Last season witnessed Portuguese domination, with Benfica, Braga and Porto competing in the final four.  Porto ended up winning the competition against Braga in the final.

The last time Italy did have representation at even the semi-final stage of Europe's second-tier competition was when Fiorentina lost to Rangers on penalties during the 2007-08 season of what was then the UEFA Cup.  Since then, there have been some high-profile embarrassments.  Just this season, Palermo were eliminated at the qualifying stage by Thun of Switzerland.  Last season, Napoli  played lethargically and drew with the likes of Utrecht, and a last-gasp goal against Steaua Bucharest barely qualified them for the second round, at which hurdle they stumbled to the team they expertly vanquished just yesterday in the Champions League--Villarreal.  And lest we forget, just last season, Juventus could not beat Poland's Lech Poznan to get out of the group stage.

If money is not the motivation, then can not sporting merit be enough in and of itself?  If Italian teams see the Europa League as an opportunity to try out youth and players who get less action during the league season, then why can not a certain quality of performances be virtually guaranteed? Is the failure of Italian teams in the Europa League also symptomatic of a failure of a system that is not producing enough quality?

Indeed, the last question is sobering, and reminds us of how far Italian football has sunk.  Parma and Inter won Europe's second-tier competition five times between them in the 1990s.  However, in the last twelve years, not one Italian team has triumphed.

Yesterday, Serie A had a memorable day in the Champions League.  Inter went to Moscow and managed a thrilling 3-2 victory against CSKA Moscow, while Napoli cruised past Villarreal 2-0 at the San Paolo.  It is also up to the Europa League contestants of Lazio and Udinese to keep the momentum going.  If Serie A clubs do not heed these alarming signs of decline, then Italy will inevitably be fighting to keep hold of the three coveted Champions League spots it does have left.  Trying to win back the third spot from Germany seems improbable; losing the fourth position to France or even Portugal does not.  And even for Italian football, which seems to withstand all sorts of debacles, that ignominy may be one too many.

UEFA Coefficient Rankings taken from Bert Kassies's website