The first edition of the new Champions League proved to be a Waterloo for Italian football, yet another in the European cups, together with the two lack of world qualifications and the debacle of the last European. Nothing humanly dramatic, nothing that will change our lives, but for those who deal with sports, football in particular, an analysis is necessary. It being understood that football, willingly or nolent, is among the top ten ‘industries’ of the country who pays something like a billion euros of taxes per year, with thousands of employees, excluding players, coaches and apical managers. And speaking of analysis. In the last three seasons, the Italian teams have played six European finals only winning two: the conference league with Mourinho’s Roma and the Europa League with the Atalanta of Gasperini, beautiful and well -deserved victories. On the other hand, Inter has lost the Champions League final, Roma one from the Europa League and Fiorentina two consecutive conference; competition where, from its creation, we always went to the final.

The last Champions League was won by Inter, by Mourinho, in 2010 and since then with the Nerazzurri and Juventus we have lost all three the finals played. Someone could object on the episodes that define the result of an ending, in agreement but it is not with these that analyzes can be done, it would be somewhat ridiculous. The analyzes are done with the data, better still with the macro data, which are there for all to see, for those who want to see them.

The Wanna brands of the football product

In the last three seasons we have heard of everything. The most popular refrain was the health of Italian football, on the long wave of the European Championship won in 2021 in Wembley, to penalties against the hosts of England. It seemed to listen to Mina’s song “but what goodness”: «But why, why, but why / in the kitchen never give us, huh? / What’s in the pan / mmm that smell / have a small piece taste? / But what goodness, but what goodness … ». With the great football commentators to give their elbow and the scorchilluccicanti eyes in the face of the results that were supporting their theses. And in the face of the finals reached, three out of three in 2023, to speak of the Renaissance of Italian football, mixing “La Rava and Fava”. And, in reality, making the figure of disorders and hystericals Wanna Marchi, in the ungrateful task of selling the football product for pay platforms, not always up to the price paid in the transmission of the matches, both from a purely technical point of view and, Sometimes, journalistic. Where the customer-client is continually guy also in the face of a reality different from how it is then told, continuously turning on the waters and playing the game of the three cards where in the end the bench always wins, with the result of a distorted narrative of football Italian, of clubs, respective governance and movement in its entirety. What Italian football has done in the last three seasons has been thanks to the individual clubs, Atalanta, Fiorentina, Inter and Rome, of their respective coaches, technical staff and managers. It was not the Renaissance – as repeatedly told – of a movement but the spot on teams that found the square to get to there; Winning 2 times out of 6, because then the trophies will be counted after years not the second or third places, about data.

National and globalization

On closer inspection of the victories of the Italian national team in the post -war period, from 1968 to 1982, from 2006 to 2021, with four finals lost between world and European Championships, they never went hand in hand with the dominion of our clubs in the cups. Sixty -eight aside, with Inter and Milan who maramalded the cup cups and the cup cup between the 1982 World Cup after the asphyxiated seventies, in which in Europe we often took sticked sound, that of 2006 in a period in which we believed Still to be competitive – thanks, above all, to Milan – and in the middle of the earthquake Calciopoli – on which a historical reflection and, above all, it would go Seally made -, and the victory of 2021 to the European Championship in a desert panorama where only Juventus and Inter had reached the final, twice in the Champions League, in the Europa League the Nerazzurri, losing all three in the Europa League. The Italian clubs, in fact, dominated the European cups in the second half of the eighties and in the nineties, winning five champions cups, eight UEFA cups and four cup cups, bringing nine different teams to the final, conquering all in 1990 And three European cups and winning three consecutive editions of UEFA twice, not to mention the lost finals and those played with Italian teams alone. Years in which the Italian national team has not won anything and only played the final of the US World Championship in 1994. This, therefore, tells us, given to hand, that the state of health of the clubs does not always correspond to that of the national team and it would be good Even understanding what we mean by the health of the movement. The federal governance that followed one have been able to only ride the victories by avoiding being ‘dirty’ by defeats and promising almost never implemented reforms. In addition, in the eighties and nineties, the Italian clubs were the Arabs Ante Litteram, rich and without today’s financial checks, capable of buying the strongest foreign players, transforming Serie A into the most beautiful championship in the world: a long wave that no one has been able to exploit and transform, especially the governance of single teams. A movement that has produced talents for many decades and which, however, struggles in the latter. And if national and club have never gone hand in hand it is even more ridiculous today to compare them in front of a globalized football, where the championships are all full of foreign players, but in other federations you work differently on the representative side.

Vetless stadiums, debts, capital gains and governance

Apartly, apart from individual cases, Italian football will soon return competitive in its entirety. Inter, Juventus and Milan, to name the three clubs that have won most internationally, have ridiculous governance and economic problems still to be solved, two factors that then affect the construction of the teams and on the sporting results, without prejudice to that the Nerazzurri remain The strongest Italian team and the only qualified in the round of 16 of the Champions League.

Atalanta, mentioned several times as an example to follow, has taken the path of capital gains – which is not clear why for some clubs they have a negative sense, complete with investigations by the Federal Court, and for others a sense Positive – and, in the past five years, replaced many Italian players with foreign players, not eligible for the national team. And also the virtuous example of De Laurentiis’s Napoli is faltering. Gabriele Gravina, president since 2018 of the FIGC, is still there, re -elected as a single candidate, passed unscathed by the failure to qualify for the 2022 world championship and from the last disastrous European; As soon as he was elected he launched a nonsense attack on Serie C that Matteo Marani has brought attached television rights to another plan in recent years, as if the crisis of the provincial clubs was not a twenty -year problem.

We have embarrassing stadiums and most not owned, difficulty selling the television rights, in the incredulcy of the above narrators and of the various self -conscious governance all that the ‘Italian show’ merits very other income, racism and anti -Semitism ‘inhabit’ tirelessly (sigh!) Our games, the cheering curves are infiltrated by organized crime, debts that would have in other championships The relegation of the clubs caused, we play at a speed and a clearly lower intensity than the foreign teams – a purely sporting element too often taken away – so as to remember the seventies, we are still convinced that we are the best school of coaches and, in any case, those. Foreigners – Mourinho aside – does not seem to us that they are doing extraordinary things, at least so far. But, perhaps, what most softens the movement are its intestine struggles and how they are told: Inter against Juventus, Lazio against Rome, Naples against all, etc. Small neighborhoods of the neighborhood while football goes towards the future, we like it or not what it will mean, other countries have taken the economic dot of this sport in hand and soon they will also take the purely sporting one; Then there would be the financial fair play, to understand what will happen to the Premier League, between tears and requests of the most important clubs, and where the new Champions League will take us that the way by making it more and more to the Super League so vituped. Here, we are still still at “Er Gol de Turone”, on which a film has also been made, while the United States host the Club World Cup this year and United 2026 The next one, still convinced that they are the best. “Until the border,” says one of the most successful teasing, who would have ever said that he would become the manifesto of all Italian football.