Roma striker Edin Dzeko is tackled from behind by Porto’s Felipe at the Olympic Stadium, in the Champions League play-off.Italian football followers have become accustomed by now to watch Serie A clubs failing to go past the third qualifying round of the UEFA Champions League.
This year, it was no exception as Roma were knocked out by two-times European Cup winners Porto – 1-4 on aggregate.
A 1-1 draw in Portugal in the first leg augured well for Roma.
But last week, Luciano Spalletti’s side, reduced to nine men for most of the game, never got going and ended up soundly beaten at their own backyard to become the sixth Serie A outfit in the last seven years to fail to make it to the group stages.
Since August 2010, Sampdoria (eliminated by Werder Bremen), Udinese (out on two separate occasions by Arsenal and Sporting Braga), Napoli (Athletic Bilbao), Lazio (Bayer Leverkusen) and now Roma were all ‘relegated’ to the Europa League following poor showings in the early stages of the Champions League.
The only exception here were Milan. They had the better of PSV Eindhoven in 2013.
Going back into the records over the past 17 years, one would find that there were four other occasions where Serie A teams did not make it to the Champions League proper – Parma (beaten by Rangers in 1999 and by Lille in 2001), Inter (Helsingborgs in 2000) and Chievo (Levski Sofia in 2006).
Poor preparation is the main motive why Serie A teams have done so badly at this particular stage of the Champions League
Overall, Italian clubs were ousted from the third qualifying round of the Champions League 10 times in 17 attempts.
Most of the times, the premature exit from the top European competition became a prelude of worse things to come for those Italian teams missing the cut.
Inter, for instance, endured a very poor campaign in 2000/01 after their shock exit at the hands of unfancied Swedish side Helsingborgs.
Marcello Lippi was then axed by Inter and replaced by former Italy U-21 coach Marco Tardelli after the opening day of the season (a 1-2 defeat to Reggina). However, Tardelli’s stint on the Inter bench was short as he was fired at the end of the season following a string of embarrassing defeats including a 6-0 drubbing at the hands of rivals Milan.
For Chievo and Sampdoria it was even worse as they got relegated at the end of the 2006/07 and 2010/11 campaigns, respectively.
In other words, these two teams slipped into a free-fall mode after being knocked out from the Champions League third qualifying round.
In my opinion poor preparation is the main motive why Serie A teams have done so badly at this particular stage of the Champions League.
By mid-August teams should be readily assembled and firing on all cylinders to make progress on the continent. I fail to understand why on so many occasions, most Italian clubs are still on ‘a work-in-progress’ phase when tackling such crucial fixtures that can define their season in a wide variety of ways, not least financially.
Roma’s elimination last week is reported to have cost the club a staggering €30m in lost revenue.
The club’s price per share also fell, augmenting speculation that the Giallorossi may be tempted to offload one of their star players to make good for foregone revenue.
That could likely leave devastating effects on the field of play with the morale within Spalletti’s squad currently at a low as seen on Sunday evening when Roma squandered a two-goal lead to settle for a 2-2 draw at Cagliari.
On a more positive note, Italian clubs received a huge boost earlier this month as UEFA unveiled plans for the Champions League.
The new proposals will see the top four European leagues – the English Premier League, Spanish La Liga, Germany’s Bundesliga and Italian Serie A – each guaranteed four places in the group stage of the tournament, starting from season 2018/19.