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| (Courtesy of gavinzac - Flickr) |
This blog is not solely about the Premier League, or even
English football. As often as possible I will be taking a look at leagues from
around the world to give a bit of perspective to all of the stuff we read about
the premiership. Italy seemed like the best place to start. Before I look at
the individual teams in the Serie A it is worth noting something. I heard a
fact, one of those pub facts that I never really bothered to verify but spouted
as if it was gospel, that the English Championship has a higher average
attendance than the Serie A. Having finally done some research on that fact it
appears it is not true for this season, nor is it true for the last few seasons
that I checked, with the Serie A averaging between twenty-two and twenty-five
thousand and the Championship averaging between seventeen and eighteen
thousand. However this is nothing to boast about for the Serie A. The Premier
League is regularly averaging up in the mid thirty thousands and the German
Bundesliga broke many records in the 2010/11 season with an average attendance
of 42,101... and then broke those records again with a whopping 45,116 the following
season. The top attendance in the Serie A so far this season was 49,000 for
three AC Milan matches. That’s in a stadium with a capacity of over 80,000. The
reason for thisn is probably that every weekend you can see every game on TV. This may get the
clubs a bit more money in the short term from TV deals but every time I mention to an Italian
the fact that there are usually five games in Premier League on Saturday at 3pm
which you cannot show on TV they shake their head ruefully and wish that kind
of system was implemented in Italy. They say the Italian system is not doing the game any good
in the long term, it is creating more ‘fair-weather’ fans and thereby
diminishing the passion for the game in the everyman. Sad times for the Italian
game.
Movers and Shakers:
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ARTURO VIDAL
(Courtesy of Emanuela Tardochi - Flickr) |
As with much of last season Juventus are setting the pace, having
dropped only two points from their first ten games in an away draw against
Fiorentina. Perhaps most impressive in this run was their domination of last
season’s third place Udinese 4-1 in Udine and also the 2-0 win against Napoli just
a week and a half ago, who were, at the time, level on points with Juve. Having
let him go on a free last season Manchester United fans will be disappointed to
see Paul Pogba making a serious name for himself at Juve. The Frenchman scored
a last-minute winner the weekend just gone to keep Juve’s 100% home record up
and even more impressively an absolute scorcher of a volley in the victory over
Napoli. What Fergie seems to have missed in Pogba is that he is one of those
players, like Wayne Rooney, like Cristiano Ronaldo, like so many other
world-class players, who wants and deserves to be thrown straight into the
first team as a youngster, they benefit from it. This is now becoming obvious
as he is giving €10.5m summer-signing Arturo Vidal,
absent through suspension at the weekend, a tough battle for his place in the
team. This is a team that are not only winning games but also, this weekend and
the Champions League aside, putting in the performances. If anyone manages to
finish above Juve then they will surely be champions.
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DIEGO MILITO
(Courtesy of dmourati - Flickr) |
Also performing well are a back-in-form Inter. After the
aberration that was last season Inter seem to be back on track. With eight wins
from ten games they will feel very unfortunate to already be 4 points off the
top. Somewhat surprisingly their two defeats have come at the San Siro. After losing
3-1 at home to Roma in game-week two and then 2-0 to bottom of the table Siena
two matches later it looked like Inter were in for another season of disappointment.
However, they have now won 6 matches on the bounce, including a hard-fought 1-0
against underperforming rivals Milan, despite playing nearly the whole second
half with only 10 men. Seasoned veteran Diego Milito tops Inter’s scoring chart
with 5 goals for the Nerazzurri this season. Manager Andrea Stramaccioni will
be hoping that his side can keep this going and make a strong challenge for the
title that they haven’t won since Mourinho left.
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EDINSON CAVANI
(Courtesy of Tyler Durdan_ - Flickr) |
Making up the top three are Napoli, the team that did
something that Barcelona couldn’t last season and beat Chelsea, 3-1 no less.
Despite losing a key player in Ezequiel Lavezzi to the riches of PSG (for a
whopping €30m, probably the right decision to sell)
Napoli’s ever-present super-striker Edinson Cavani has been banging the goals
in again. Cavani scored 26 league goals in his first season with Napoli, then
23 last season and he’s already on 6 for this campaign. No wonder he has been
constantly attracting the attention of Europe’s biggest clubs, who have only
been put off by claims that he would cost in excess of £50m by eccentric
(mental) president Aurelio De Laurentis. Cavani was involved in a crazy
pre-season press conference with De Laurentis, not surprisingly a film
producer, in which the president said “At times marriages come to an end. Unfortunately
Edi wants to go to England, to that cold city of Manchester, and there's a
plane ready to take him there” only to then whip out
a new 5-year contract for Cavani to sign. De Laurentis is no stranger to
publicity stunts, having revealed new signing Gokhan Inler last year by making
him wear a lion mask. Back to the football, Cavani and co. are making a very
strong case for the third Champions League spot to be theirs and I will be
surprised if they are not there or there abouts come the end of the season. (The
Serie A only gets three Champions League places now, having been overtaken in
UEFA league rankings by Germany last year.)
Disappointments:
We’ve got to start with Milan. The Rossoneri have been in
ridiculously bad form this season. Sure, losing Ibrahimovic, Thiago Silva,
Antonio Cassano and Alessandro Nesta would be a big blow to any team but the problem
lies in the fact that they haven’t really replaced them despite raking in over €60m in transfer fees. Club president Silvio Berlusconi,
recently sentenced to a year in prison for tax evasion, has probably been
skimming off the top (that’s libellous and I’d like to retract that straight away).
As a result of these gaping voids in the first team AC find themselves in 12th
place having lost five of their first ten league games. Stephen El Shaarawy is the
top scorer in the league with 7 goals but this doesn’t seem to have been enough.
They have an even goal difference, having scored and conceded 12 so far, so it’s
not like they’re shipping loads of goals but the problem is that all of the
games they have lost were by one goal. This means they’re not winning the close
games, which is actually a very difficult problem for a manager to sort out. AC
have conceded the first goal in six of their ten games in the league so far
this season and unlike Manchester United this doesn’t seem to kick them into
gear; they haven’t been able to convert any of these into wins and they only
managed to grag one of these back into a draw. This is a real problem for
manager Massimiliano Allegri who will be hoping that this is just bedding in
time for his large number of, albeit mediocre, signings.
After a better-than-expected 9th position last
season Bologna will be disappointed to find themselves in the relegation zone. Admittedly
they have already played AC, Inter, Fiorentina and Juventus, and it will have stung
to lose against the latter in added time but seven points from ten games is
below standards all the same. Losing to bottom of the table Siena and a draw at
home to newly-promoted Pescara is just not good enough for a top-half team. Talented
Uruguayan Gaston Ramirez going to Southampton was definitely a loss but that
won’t fly as an excuse for the current form to the Bolgna faithful.
Surprise Package
After a very disappointing few years out of the European
competition-qualifying places Fiorentina will be pleased to find themselves in
5th place and in touch with the Champions league places after
impressive wins against Lazio and Udinese and a solid draw against champions
Juventus. Fiorentina have made some astute signings, especially new centre back
pairing Nenad Tomovic from Genoa and Gonzalo Rodriguez from Villareal for a
combined total of around €3.5m. Former Roma man David
Pizarro on a free was also a great capture and Borja Valero, who came from
Villareal with Rodriguez, is looking like he will justify his transfer fee of
over €6m. Currently
1-0 up in a tough fixture tonight away at Genoa, young manager Vincenzo
Montella will be hoping to continue the Viola’s good run of form.
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