Re: Serie A Thread - 2010/11 Season
You think the quality of Serie A's declined slightly this year, Ben?
The openness of the league this season, without a real standout team, makes it very interesting for the netural.
i can't really use the word "decline", as that would imply a judgement and it's impossible to judge present time. u can't define an era, a period, until it's over (because your judgement would lack of any historical perspective). so we can define past eras (like the 80s serie a or the 90s serie a or the pre-calciopoli era).... but as for the present, u can't define it.. u can only describe it.
besides "decline" is quite a big word as it involves the overall quality of a league, wich means taking into account several factors (quality of the football, competitiveness of the league, facilities standards, stadia attendances and so on).
...whereas the only factor i was considering was the quality of the football played on the pitch (wich in my very personal opinion, is the most important aspect of them all).
serie a is certainly gaining something in term of competitiveness (as u mentioned). but then again, that was something we should expect all along, as "physiologically" serie a has always been a (relatively) competitive league (remember the days of the so called "7 sisters"?). calciopoli (along with the financial crisis of some clubs like roma and lazio wich occurred pretty much at the same time of calciopoli) dismantled that balance, but after a few years it was natural for the situation to rebalance itself. now roma has a new munificent owner, berlusconi restarted to invest on milan, lazio is a very well run club and juve is fighting its way back to the top.... not to mention napoli.
now theese are all great news, but over the last 10 years serie a gained a new trademark: football quality. the average quality of the football displayed by the entire league (by midclass teams and poor teams much more than by top teams actually), along with the incredible tactical variety of the league (till last season there weren't 2 teams in serie a playing the same kind of football) had become the staple of serie a and a distinctive feature of this league.
this season instead i'm not seeing that highest quality, nor that variety. there are several teams (even good teams) playing some flat and uninspiring football and i don't see the same variety i used to appreciate till last season.
keep in mind my opinion isn't very reliable, as i haven't watched much football so far this season..... but u really don't have to be an hardcore serie a follower to notice that:
- palermo is the shadow of its former self.
- fiorentina, genoa, roma and udinese are in the middle of a transitional phase.
- sampdoria isn't even here anymore
- the relegation zone teams are still playing some above average football, but they are nowhere near as good as they were in the last 5 years.
we're talking about 6/7 teams wich are evidently weaker then they were 1,2,3 years ago. the current palermo team would be litterally trashed by rossi's palermo. the current fiorentina would be dismantled by prandelli's great viola team.... and the same goes for genoa (do u remember how great gasperini's genoa was) or that amazing sampdoria's team (with pazzini, cassano, palombo, poli, gastaldello, lucchini, castellazzi, del neri as a coach and marotta as a team director).
i mean look at this palermo team. it's a very poor team (and when i say very poor i mean it would hardly qualify as a midclass team even in the epl)... and yet we're 10th in the table (and we were 5th till a few weeks ago!)... if this current palermo had been competing in the 2009/2010 serie a season (or any of the previous seasons)... well i'm absolutely sure we would be in the relegation zone. and what about roma? they're 6th right now... whereas till last season, such a team wouldn't have had any chance to get anywhere near the top 10.
so i'm not gonna talk about decline just yet.... but i can certainly say that the quality of the football played by several teams in this league has seriously dropped in the current season.
that's the feeling i get when i look at the teams first squads.... and this feeling has been confirmed by those (few, to be honest) games i had the chance to watch.
edmundo said:
I thought it was probably Cheillini as I thought I recognised the face, its one that even a mother would struggle to love


well u know how they say in napoli, don't u... "
ogni scarrafone è bell' a' mamma soia"
