What is happening in Serie A?
Serie A, one of the top 3 leagues in the world, or not anymore?
Once upon a time Serie A was the best league in the world, Italian clubs were dominant in all the major football competitions and winning serious numbers of thropies. Not only on the pitch, they were the best at capturing the top transfers in the market too. They had all the money to buy any player they wanted, and all players were looking forward to play in Serie A.Henry played for Juve
Marco Van Basten, Roberto Baggio, Thierry Henry, Didier Deschamps, Gabriel Batistuta, Ronaldo, Zinedine Zidane and much more top class players were playing in Serie A, and Serie A was much more interesting to watch. And the league competition was much tight and harder, not only 2-3 clubs were competing for the title, at least 5-6 clubs were doing their best to get Scudetto.For example lets think about Parma FC, they finished the Serie A in second place in 1997, they won the Italian Cup and Italian Super cup in 1999, and they even won UEFA Cup in 1999. They were one of the dominating clubs in Italy, but now? Because of economical problems they had to play in Serie B in 2007-2008 season, and now they are back in Serie A. But sure, they dont have the same potential to win cups like they were used to win before, and they dont have top class players anymore like Gianfranco Zola, Gianluigi Buffon, Fabio Cannavaro, Hernan Crespo or Adriano.
Parma won the UEFA Cup in 1994-1995 season
Why Italian clubs started to get weaker? Why Serie A not so interesting anymore? Everything started with the Serie A Scandal during 2006, and continued with the financial problems till now.
Now best players dont play for Serie A clubs anymore, or they leave Italian clubs and transfer to England or Spain. And Italian clubs arent so successful anymore in Champions League and UEFA cup. The last European Cup won by an Italian Club was UEFA Super Cup in 2007 (AC Milan).
Competition in Serie A? Unfortunately destroyed...Only 2 or 3 clubs compete to win the league now, but what does it matter? For 4 years Inter is the champion. It seems like Serie A lost its excitement too.
Pavel Nedved, Vincenzo Montella and Luis Figo declared their retirement. Successful former AC Milan coach Carlo Ancelotti left the club and started to work for Chelsea.
Ibrahimovic and Kaka left Italy
And lets take a look at good players who left Serie A: Former Roma player Alberto Aquilani now plays for Liverpool. One of the best strikers in the world, former Inter player Zlatan Ibrahimovic is now wearing Barcelona shirt, but Maxwell is still his team-mate, because Inter sold him to Barcelona too (Now Inter have only one option for left-back position: young player Davide Santon. But Barcelona have two top class left-backs now, Abidal and Maxwell. And they are in the same group in Champions League).
Ibrahimovic with his new Barcelona shirt
Genoa's experienced defender Matteo Ferrari moved to Besiktas. Andriy Schevchenko's loan at AC Milan finished, he went back to Chelsea, but then he signed with his former club Dynamo Kiev.
AC Milan sold Kaka to Real Madrid for around 86 million €. Everybody was thinking that talented young player Yoann Gourcuff will take his place in the first eleven of Milan instead of Kaka, but AC Milan sold him too. Milan earned around 14 million € from this transfer, but lost a very good player. Now Gourcuff is playing for Bordeaux, where he again played last season as a loaned player.
Everybody was excited when David Beckham moved to AC Milan as a season-long loan. With the help of Beckham, Serie A could again get interesting and take attraction, but unfortunately in the begining of this season Beckham's loan finished and he went back to L.A. Galaxy. Finally, talented young midfielder Kuzmanovic moved to Stuttgart from Fiorentina, and Fiorentina got 8 million € from this transfer.
Kaka now plays for Real Madrid
Of course Italian clubs bought players too, but if we have a look to the amount of money that Italian clubs spent for transfer, we can see clearly how Serie A clubs are having financial problems.
Who spent more money in transfer market in this season? Sure, Inter. They spent around 83 million € for new players this season (including Sneijder's transfer). After Inter, FC Genua spent around 56 million €, then Juventus with 46 million €. But although Inter spent 83 million €, Inter made profit in transfer market, they earned 90 million € with the players they sold. And who made the biggest profit between Serie A clubs? Of course AC Milan, they earned 71 million € in transfer season, and spent only around 18 million €!If we compare the most expensive transfers of Serie A, Premier League and La Liga, we can see the difference of these top leagues. The most expensive transfer of Serie in transfer season is Diego (from W.Bremen to Juventus), for 24,5 million €. Secondly, Felipe Melo's move from Fiorentina to Juventus, for 20,5 million €. And at third place, Sneijder's move from Real Madrid to Inter for 15 million €. So the amount of most three expensive transfers in Italy makes 60 million €.
Most expensive transfer in Italy this season - Diego
In England three most expensive transfers are made by Manchester City, they paid 35 million € for Carlos Tevez, 29 million € for Emmanuel Adebayor and 28 million € for Lescott. That makes 92 million €.
(too read about the first league match of Real Madrid please visit http://helloteenpedia.blogspot.com/2009/08/action-in-bernabeu.html)
It is too clear that Italian clubs are behind English and Spanish clubs as financially, maybe it can be the reason they cant compete with them in Champions League and UEFA Cup. They can solve this problem with having young talented players and giving more importance to youth academies, but they are again not as good as English and Spanish clubs at this (except Juventus).
What will be the Serie A's future? Well, lets just watch football and see...
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