Serie A football is competitive within but has been lacklustre in Europe

What is not much of an endorsement of Serie A’s standards is a low record of recent achievement in the Uefa Champions League, writes Ian Hawkey.

French midfielder Paul Pogba and his Juventus teammates need to win Wednesday against Coppenhagen to keep the Serie A chances in the Uefa Champions League alive. Stefano Derrico / AFP
Powered by automated translation

Amid the alarming scenes in the San Siro stadium precinct on Saturday, when a group of 300-odd fans effectively blocked AC Milan’s players from leaving after their 1-1 draw with Genoa — until talks with Kaka and Christian Abiatti resolved things — the Milan vice president Adriano Galliani called for perspective.

“Bad years happen to everyone,” Galliani said of Milan’s mediocre domestic form. “Inter aren’t in the Champions League, Fiorentina are only in the Europa League, and Napoli weren’t in the Champions League last season. Clubs don’t die after a bad year.”

By bracketing Milan with their peers, Galliani emphasised the fluid nature of fortunes in Serie A. It is a point he and fellow negotiators across clubs will be making again over the coming weeks, as the Italian league sets up its next tranche of television-rights agreements, to start from 2015.

The relative attractiveness of the Italian top flight in a global market is an issue, and selling Serie A as a more competitive league than, say, Spain’s Primera Liga, or Germany’s Bundesliga, is useful.

What is not much of an endorsement of Serie A’s standards, though, is a low record of recent achievement in the Uefa Champions League.

Of immediate concern is that the club with the best apparent resources to go far in Europe, Juventus, have failed to win any of their Champions League matches. Juve need a big result tonight, against Copenhagen, to start their overdue process of catch-up.

sports@thenational.ae

Follow us on twitter at @SprtNationalUAE