Italian football has semingly fallen of a cliff. They were once unbeatable and guaranteed to win titles. This is in reference to both the national team and the domestic sides in Serie A.
However, things have changed drastically. The national side are at risk of missing a third straight World Cup. Three of four teams competing in the Champios League didn't reach the Last 16 and what's worse; current Serie A champions, Napoli, couldn't pass the League Phase. They finished in 30th place out of 36.
Italian football in the 80s and 90s was the pinnacle of club football. The latter decade in particular was a period in which Serie A set the standard.
Recent events have underlined the decline of a proud football nation on the international stage. Inter Milan's exit to Norwegian side, Bodø/Glimt, in the play-off round is already one of the Champions League's greatest shocks.
Last season's finalists were unceremoniously dumped out by the tournament debutants, a Norwegian town with a total population just over half of San Siro's capacity.
After home and away wins against Inter, Bodø/Glimt's giant-killing is the second biggest aggregate win by a team from outside Europe's top five leagues against Italian opposition in the Champions League.
Inter's exit follows Napoli's nightmare, as the Scudetto holders failed to progress out of the League Phase. In an expanded format that allows 24 teams to progress, it's an astonishing underachievement.
More are due to follow. It's a stark comparison to those nineties glory years. In the decade between the 1989-90 season and the 1998-99 campaign, Italian teams featured in 25 major European finals, securing 13 trophies. Four times during that period, the UEFA Cup was contested as an all-Italian final.
The dominance extended off the pitch. Italy had world-leading infrastructure after renovations and fresh builds for Italia '90, while Italian teams broke the world transfer record nine times between 1984 and 2000. Across that same period, only two La Liga (Spanish league) deals and one Premier League transfer interrupted that run.
It was a time when the top talents called Serie A home. From 1982 to 1998, 13 of the 17 Ballon d'Or winners (76%) belonged to Italian clubs. It truly was a constellation of talent.
The current decline extends far beyond this season's Champions League failure. It's been almost 16 years since an Italian side last won the Champions League, while there's been only one Italian winner of the UEFA Cup/Europa League this century.
At international level, four-time world champions Italy are in danger of missing a third consecutive World Cup. Before missing out in 2018, it had been 60 years since their previous qualification failure.
The Azzurri squad was once packed with premium players but how many of the current crop can be considered world-class? Gianluigi Donnarumma, for sure, but beyond the giant goalkeeper, there is a lack of elite talent.
Balance, of course, is required. Across the last five seasons, only the Premier League has outperformed Italian sides in European competition. Inter Milan (2), Roma (2), Fiorentina (2) and Atalanta have all been to UEFA finals. Three of those final appearances, however, came in the recently-formed third-tier Conference League.
Similarly, the lack of a genuine dominant force has made Serie A the most competitive of Europe's top five leagues. The Scudetto hasn't been won consecutively since 2020, with four different winners in the last six seasons. It's an unpredictability that La Liga, Ligue 1 (French), the Bundesliga (German) and the Premier League would all benefit from.
For the second successive season, Serie A has one club remaining in the Last 16 of the Champions League as Italian football struggles to compete in Europe's premier club competition and risks falling even further behind.
No Italian club finished in the top eight of the League Phase, which would've meant avoiding the knockout play-offs; a symptom of a wider malaise in Italian football with the national side also facing a play-off competition to avoid missing out on the World Cup for a third consecutive occasion.
Atalanta came back from 2-0 down after their playoff first leg against Borussia Dortmund to advance on Wednesday; while Juventus came close to their own great escape but ultimately paid the price for a 5-2 loss to Galatasaray last week.
Serie A champions Napoli exited the competition after the League Phase. Antonio Conte's side struggled to compete on both fronts and now find themselves 14 points off leaders Inter Milan as the Scudetto slips from their grasp.
Inter, last season's Champions League finalists and widely regarded as the best side in Italy, went out of the competition to Bodø/Glimt, losing both home and away to the Norwegian club having suffered a humiliating defeat against Paris-St-Germain in last year's decider.
Against PSG, Inter were devoid of ideas and outclassed by a young, dynamic team in a 5-0 hammering. Italian football often struggles to produce this type of exciting player and the clubs don't have the money to bring them to Serie A.
Premier League clubs spent over £3 billion pounds ($4.06 billion) in the most recent close-season transfer window; well over double Serie A's outlay. The Italian league also lags far behind the Premier League when it comes to broadcasting revenue.
In contrast to Italy's Champions League struggles, England's top flight has six teams into the competition's Round of 16.
The Italy national team is also struggling, with their Euro 2020 triumph papering over the cracks.
Italy won the World Cup 20 years ago but followed that up with two group-stage exits before failing to qualify for the two most recent editions.
In the qualifying competition for this year's tournament, Italy were soundly beaten by Norway twice to leave them facing the perils of play-off football once again and as Serie A clubs have found out, that path is fraught with danger.
In the 21st Century, only two overseas managers have won a Scudetto. The last was Jose Mourinho in his pomp with Inter Milan – coincidentally, the last time that an Italian side tasted glory in the Champions League was in the 2009/10 season, with four final defeats since. The other was Sven-Goran Eriksson, right at the start of the 2000s.
It's proof of an insular culture. Italian coaching, however, is perhaps due a revolution.
Antonio Conte is a genuine Serie A legend, his achievements standing among any coach on the continent right now: but he is anachronistic in a way, his style contingent on recycling discarded parts of other super teams – and not only is the long-term viability of such football continually tested in the modern game, his record in Europe is consistently troubling.
Looking at, arguably, the next three big names in Italian management, Simone Inzaghi and Roberto Mancini, are both in the Middle East, while Carlo Ancelotti is living it up in Rio. Gian Piero Gasperini rounds off the top five and he has Roma fourth – but he's 68 and with all due respect, is not the future of the game.
Other notable Italian coaches aren't influenced all that much by Italian football. Enzo Maresca has enjoyed success, relatively, in England: but his only spell managing in his homeland lasted 14 games. Roberto De Zerbi is cut from a similar cloth, his suitability at the top level currently up for debate after a blow out in southern France. Thiago Motta was superb at Bologna; not so good at Juventus.
The recent guard, who you may consider traditional Calcio men, are no longer considered elite. Max Allegri is back at AC Milan, still second in the league but no longer linked with top jobs. Stefano Pioli is now 60, his last title, in 2022, probably his last. Vincenzo Italiano is talented, if not cut out for the top. Maurizio Sarri is back at Lazio, perhaps suggesting the same.
It is of little surprise then that Italian clubs, these days, are looking to up-and-coming talent from overseas in the quest for an edge: Cesc Fabregas, Carlos Cuesta and Cristian Chivu. Fabregas, meanwhile, hasn't pulled punches about the state of the game in Italy, noting that Spain is "obsessed" with youth compared to Italy.
Spanish coaching seems to be en vogue these days and Fabregas seems destined for a big Premier League move sooner rather than later. The English top flight has been won by Italian managers more times since its rebrand in 1992 than any other nationality – but it would have seemed utterly ludicrous for huge swathes of Prem history for the Azzurri national team captain to be playing his club football in England.
Alessandro Del Piero has passionately pointed out the reasons behind Italian football's latest slump.
The national team, who Del Piero won 91 caps for and won the 2006 World Cup with, must beat Wales or Bosnia and Herzegovina away in a one-off game to avoid failing to qualify for a third consecutive World Cup.
"Can I cry? It's a struggle situation," Del Piero told CBS before Inter's loss on Tuesday. "Not everything is a bad as it appears, but 90 or 95%. It is the result of what has happened in Italy in the past years."
"The level of investment is low. Other markets have become much, much bigger than us. Problems? Stadiums. We know you have to perform better outside of the pitch [to improve] that. Youth systems? We will see Borussia Dortmund play Atalanta with two Italian guys [born in] 2008. Excuse me? What's going on? Why don't we have these Italians, why are they playing for Dortmund?"
Samuele Inacio Pia, aged 17 and Luca Reggiani, 18, are involved in the German club's first team.
Del Piero added: "There is something missing in many parts. We still need to collect the pieces together and make it. We don't want to make history of breaking this streak of 41 years. Especially, at the end of the month with the national team."
"I believe that, financially, our teams need to be more regulated. Not having so much debt. We don't [all] have owners, like Juventus have, who write a big cheque at the end of the season."
"We need to find again the love for the game, not only on the pitch. We need to be more responsible for what we show the public, there are so many controversies sometimes."
"We need to find tradition, not only for young footballers." Del Piero also insisted that Serie A's top clubs must end a culture of transferring players frequently between each other.
"We have huge amounts of transfers between big teams -- Inter-Juve, Milan-Inter, Fiorentina-Juve, Inter-Napoli," he said. "This doesn't happen to other clubs. I don't say that this is wrong. But we [had] different relationships which brought us here. We need to stop a bit, and say: 'What do we need?'"
Jurgen Klismann, the German legend who won the 1990-91 UEFA Cup with Inter, told ESPN: "It's hugely embarrassing for every Italian football fan, not only Inter fans because the other clubs are struggling in the same way.
"There are so many questions now discussed in Italy. How can this happen, you lose to a team who have made its name in the past two or three years in the Conference League, going to the semi-final and beating some big names. They were outstanding, they deserved the biggest compliments."
For a club like Inter, this is really a catastrophe, a moment where they have to reflect. "But for a club like Inter this is really a catastrophe, a moment where they have to reflect."
"What is going on? They have to question everything. The team was never convinced they could turn it around. The stadium was sold out, the atmosphere was brilliant, but they never created clean chances. It was all half- chances. They could never step up rhythm-wise, never go to another gear."
Italy’s National Team Head of Delegation and Italian goalkeeper, Gianluigi Buffon, has delivered a scathing assessment of Italian football’s struggles, blaming decades of complacency and the short-sighted nature of the country’s political class for the continuing crisis, according to an extensive interview with the Gazzetta dello Sport.
Buffon addressed his famous comment upon returning from the 2010 World Cup, where he had warned that the national team’s struggles were just beginning. He recalled his original warning: "Here we made some mistake, there is no doubt. But beware: in a few years we will find ourselves celebrating qualifications, not a World Cup win."
He explained that this was not merely prophetic but a recognition of the situation: "I understood what was happening, the changes underway were faster than expected.” He added that his intent was also “I also wanted us not to tell ourselves stories that no longer exist."
Buffon drew a stark contrast between Italy and its European rivals, noting that Italy is still burdened by its history. He said that unlike Italy, other major football nations are in the present: "The problem is living in two worlds that do not meet. On the one hand, by virtue of our history, we are presumptuous: we think everything is due to us by divine grace."
He continued, "France has been a great team for thirty years, Spain for almost twenty, they are in the present." For Italy, he blamed a fundamental failure in planning: "Today’s results date back twenty years, to when we became complacent about our strength, about Buffon, Cannavaro, Totti. Thinking that it would be eternal by divine grace. Even then, we should have rethought the technical and tactical models, but we were cicadas."
The legendary goalkeeper was direct in his criticism of the system’s lack of long-term vision, which he attributes to external pressure. He stated that implementing the necessary deep reforms requires a commitment that politicians are unwilling to make: "It is a courageous choice that politics often doesn’t make, focused on votes and therefore on the here and now, without thinking about planning."
Buffon concluded with a grim prediction for the continued stagnation of Italian football: if these issues are not addressed with stability and patience, the problems will remain for the next generation. He warned the interviewer: “Simple: in ten years you will interview another Buffon in my place, and the questions and answers will be the same.”
For a nation once regarded as football's finest destination, introspection is required. For the football romantics, and the Azzurri's long-term future, Serie A standards can not afford to slip further.
It's rather sad that Italian football has sunk this low. It's rather unexpected. I remember when they feared and that no team wanted to face them. However, times have changed and they need to adapt to modern tactics. Living off past glories can't help solve problems.
It can, however, be a stepping stone to succeed in the future. It can be a teaching tool for future players. The best way to adapt is to see how other teams play.