I think Serie A will be back in a few years.
I reckon the big moment when Italian football started it's decline was when Man United beat Juventus 3-2 after being 2-0 down. It seemed at that time and after that they looked at themselves in much the same way as English football does after every shit international tournament. In the next few years, a lot of the big name players left Italy and went to Spain or elsewhere and you started getting a lot more Italian players in each team. Until the shit hit the fan last year, I thought it was making a comeback but I think it will be another couple of years before they are truly back.
some interesting points here, marukomu.
first of all i think that, when we talk about football, we have to separate the different aspects of football today. football nowadays is very different from 10 years ago. the bosman sentence changed for ever football as we were use to know it, and his (bad and good) consequences were huge.
the circumstances that brought serie a to be the greatest (i'd rather say the only) football league in europe, are gone, and serie a won't ever come back to be the greatest league in europe, for many factors (apart the bosman rule)
- FA managers did a great job in the past 10 years and nowadays, talking about "the whole package", the premiership is by far the most enjoiable league in europe (but if we just consider football quality, then the sitation is very different; nontheless, just a few "football fans" really know about football.... most of them are just excited by big names and big individual plays, so they can't even appreciate the difference between italian football and english football..... just consider how many ignorants still think that italians teams play a "defensive" football).
i mean, me too, i love to follow the premiership, even if, being honest, the quality of football played in england (excluding chelsea, man utd, arsenal and liverpool) is very poor.
- in spain the fiscal treatment is better than in italy, so, if barca and milan (just to make an example) offer a 5 millions euros contract to a player, that player will prefer barca as he will pay less taxes in spain.
- moreover, here in italy, we did everything we could to dismantle our reputation, with cheating scandals, awful stadia, unfair tv rights contracts, etc...).
but, as i said before, this is talking about "the whole package". if we separate the many aspects of football, and just consider the quality of football played, then nobody who really follow all the most important leagues in europe, and who really knows about football, can deny that the quality of italian football is still superior.
to compare the quality of football played in italy and england, for example, we can't just consider the big teams, as premiership and serie a are composed by 20 teams, and it would be unappropriate to consider just 4 of them.
arsenal, liverpool, man utd and chelsea play a high quality football (even if i'm not so sure about chelsea..:mrgreen: ), but what if we look at the others 16 teams behind them?
shall we talk about bolton's football? shall we talk about everton football? shall we talk about man city, charlton, wigan or west ham football? and better not to mention fulham, as their way to play can't even be called "football" :roll: .
let us consider serie a now. did u guys saw lazio great football? did u notice what a fantastic football palermo played till december? did u notice what kind of football is fiorentina playing (they could be really considered a sort of university of football today). shall we talk about teams like empoli, atalanta and reggina? they're probably the poorest teams in italy, but still they're playing the most fascinating football in italy this season.
let's put things in the right perspective. we can say everything we want about cheating scandals, violent supporters, horrible stadia, inadequate teams presidents and ceo, unappropriate security, but when we talk just about football, serie a is still the university of football in europe, and that's something that nobody who really knows about football can deny...........
.... and this is told by a premiership lover like i am
Diego, u're talking about a "boring league"...... and talking about competition, u're right. everybody knew inter would have win the title, even before this season started.
But what makes a league "boring"? i don't think it's all about the competition.
let me make myself clear. when i go to the stadium to follow a football match (or when i turn on my tv) i don't care if the competition for the scudetto is still opened or not. i just hope i'll see a beautiful match, quality football...... and that's the only thing we all really care, don't u think?
who cares if still 3,4,5 teams have the chance to win the title, if all the others 16 teams play a poor football?
we don't pay our tickets to see who will win the premiership or the serie a..... we pay tickets to see football matches.... and our biggest hope is always to see a beautiful football match, am i wrong?
as i said before, serie a won't ever comeback the greatest league in europe in my opinion. but i'm not sad at all about it, coz this means that english, spanish, french and german football grew up, and this is a great news for a football addict like me. 15 years ago i just enjoyed serie a, today i enjoy serie a, laliga, ligue 1 and premiership..... and i can just be happy about it, being a football lover.
. too bad that non italian speaker people can't appreciate it. they miss a lot of "benigni" 
