Cost-cutting and lack of glory heralds a demise in Italian soccer

OUT OF the deep freeze comes the Champions League with two scoops of England versus Italy to send a tingle down the spine.

European football was created for these epic clashes of culture and history, evoking grainy images of master technicians in shirts featuring mainly black stripes, but Italian pride has been damaged in recent years.

This has nothing to do with the flight of Don Fabio but concerns the slide of a footballing nation which has brought home the World Cup four times and produced more European Cup finalists (26) than any other.

Since the high-water mark of 2003 – when Milan beat Inter in the semi-final and overcame Juventus on penalties in the final at Old Trafford – Italian teams have been a fading force in the Champions League.

In terms of lifting the trophy they have fared no worse than the English. Milan won in 2007 and Inter three years later. But Italian clubs have made only four appearances in semifinals since 2003, compared to 14 from England.

Milan have not reached the last four since 2007, when they beat Liverpool in Athens to avenge Istanbul and win their seventh European title, the last great achievement of Carlo Ancelotti’s Rossoneri vintage.

Jose Mourinho’s Inter won three years later without an Italian on the pitch in the final against Bayern Munich until Marco Materazzi appeared in the second minute of stoppage time.

This year the trend becomes more tangible because Uefa’s co-efficient takes a grip and Serie A surrenders its fourth Champions League spot to the Bundesliga.

It is a sobering step backwards for a nation accustomed to the finest football and the trend is reflected across its domestic game in falling attendances. Snow fell in the first weekend in February but 200,000 empty seats at Serie A games were not all the fault of the Arctic snap.

“The golden age is finished,” says Roberto Perrone, of Corriere della Sport.

“Until 2000, the top players in the world would come to Italy. We had Platini, Zico, Maradona, Rummenigge and Falcao in the 80s and the first players to leave the Soviet Union to play abroad came to Italy – Sergei Alenikov and Oleksandr Zavarov. Then we had Van Basten, Gullit, Rijkaard, Ronaldo, Zidane.

“Now the Italian clubs don’t have the capacity to compete with Spanish and English clubs,” he added. “In the past, Messi and Ronaldo would play in Italy. Now it is impossible.”

The global financial problems have hit hard at clubs already weakened by the “Calciopoli” match-fixing scandal which broke in 2006 and still rumbles on.

The personal fortunes of Milan president Silvio Berlusconi and Inter president Massimo Moratti may be safe but they are more prudent in the transfer market these days.

Milan wanted Carlos Tevez but settled for Maxi Lopez instead. The big Italian teams trailed Basle’s Xedran Shaqiri before he agreed to join Bayern Munich.

“Twenty years ago, if Milan wanted a player, he arrived,” added Perrone.

Juventus, traditionally more cost conscious than the Milan clubs, have resolved to pay only their top three or four stars more than £70,000 a week at a time when Manchester City pay their best players more than £200,000. Others offer even more than City, as Samuel Eto’o, now playing for Russia’s Anzhi Makhachkala, found.

And Italian clubs cannot generate match-day income to rival their English counterparts.

Almost all Italy’s stadiums are municipally owned and barely modernised since the 1990 World Cup. Corporate facilities are unsophisticated. Milan and Inter can attract 80,000 to the San Siro but sell their merchandise from a glorified caravan in the car park.

Recently in Serie A, 33,000 wallowed in the vast Stadio Olimpico as Roma beat Inter 4- 0, fewer than 20,000 saw Genoa beat Lazio and around 10,000 watched Fiorentina beat Udinese in a stadium for 46,000.

Only Juventus were anywhere close to capacity. The cash tills are ringing at Juventus as they bank the rewards of a shiny, new, privately-owned stadium, with capacity crowds close to the pitch, adjacent mall, megastore and museum. Revenue has risen by 12 percent. – Daily Mail