Whatever happened to Serie A?

With the restart of Seire A at the weekend we thought take a trip down memory lane and ask whatever happend to Serie A?

The above video showcases some wonderful goals (many of them volleys) from arguably the greatest period for Italian domestic football the 90’s. I remember when I was first getting into football, and Italian football was at it’s absolute height, with the likes of Juventus and AC Milan dominating European football and players like Gullit, Van Basten, Weah, Vialli and Klinsmann graced their league. The legendary Football Italia on Channel 4, used to be my highlight of the week, I was lucky enough to actually witness George Weah’s wonderful solo goal against Verona live one Sunday afternoon. It appeared that Italy was the place to be if you were a Footballer 10 years ago, big money transfers of the likes of Ronaldo, Zidane and Crespo only echoed this statement.

Now fast forward to the present and it is a very different picture. A league that was once wide open to many teams has now become dominated by Inter Milan. The teams seemed clogged up with former superstars still earning a paycheck; step forward Del Piero, Vieira, Figo, Nesta and Seedorf to name just a few. Although we are not doubting the talents of those individuals, however the lack of young talent that has emerged from Italy in the best decade is nothing compared to the Premiership or La Liga. With players like Ibrahimovic expressing their delight of leaving the league, it doesn’t paint a pretty picture for Serie A. And who can forget the match fixing scandals of 2006? However there does appear to be glimmers of hope for Serie A in the past few years. The uprising of young talents such as Pato, Lavezzi and Amauri have proved to be exciting. The standard of goals hasn’t dropped either look up Mascara’s volley against Palermo for evidence. Plus with new superstars such as Diego and Eto’o recently joining the league the season a head for Italy could prove to be interesting to say the least.