Article 91 -Review of Serie A 2019–20
The longest season ever in the history of the Italian league was concluded in the weekend that just passed us by.
As you would be aware by now, Juventus emerged as champions of Italy again remarkably for the 9th straight season, the longest run as consecutive champions in any of Europe’s Big 5 leagues. You can read more about it here: https://medium.com/@rasfootballworld/article-85-juventus-champions-of-italy-again-bc00843c2a4d
The points difference between first and second was the closest since that ill-fated 2001–02 season, ill-fated from the perspective of an Inter fan. Inter finished the season in second place, just one point behind Juventus. You can read more about what I thought of Inter’s season in the following article: https://medium.com/@rasfootballworld/article-89-inter-ends-the-season-as-bridesmaid-ce53bbe1cece.
Atalanta carried on their great run of punching above their weight, qualifying for the Champions League for the second season in a row. Atalanta is arguably everyone’s favourite second team and the way they have gone about their business, playing some great football without any recognised stars is a refreshing change in today’s world of football. They ended the season with the best attack, just two goals short of reaching a century of goals this season.
Duvan Zapata is getting the goals for them supported by captain, Papu Gomez. Luis Muriel has always been a talented forward with his consistency the only doubt but he has filled in well this season. Josip Ilicic is a player that has been in Serie A for a long time but like Muriel struggled with consistency. He has found that with Atalanta. Unfortunately due to some undisclosed personal issues, his season ended prematurely. Mario Pasalic has stepped up in Ilicic’s absence and I have been very impressed by Ruslan Malinovskiy.
Since their emergence under Gian Piero Gasperini they have successfully sold players and reinvested into shrewd signings at low cost to continue their progress. It will be interesting to see how long this can go on for because I am sure the players they have will continue attracting attention from other clubs. They are not backed by a wealthy owner and the Italian Serie A is not a wealthy league. Finishing third in the league and progression into the knockout stages of the Champions League would mean additional funds into their coffers. I wish them all the best in the Champions League and I hope they go past Paris Saint-Germain and maybe even win it.
Lazio has had a great season this season. They emerged as Juventus’ closest challenger before the enforced Corona Virus break and were on a long run of unbeaten matches. The difference after the break was like chalk and cheese. Their lack of squad depth has been their undoing. They did end the season with one piece of silverware, Supercoppa Italiana. Ciro Immobile ended the season with a record-equalling 36 goals to win the Capocannoniere and European Golden Shoe to cap off a great campaign for him.
The players that impressed me the most from this Lazio team were their goalkeeper Thomas Strakosha, defender Francesco Acerbi and midfielders Sergej Milinkovic-Savic and Luis Alberto. Immobile still needs to convince me of his ability to perform at the biggest stage. Lazio could still find themselves out of the Champions League if Napoli wins the Champions League and Roma win the Europa League. This season, they disappointed in the Europa League bundling out early in the group stage. It might have been a ploy to focus to sacrifice the Europa League for Serie A but they will need to improve their squad depth to better cope with the demands of playing in Europe and Italy. I am not sure if this is the vintage Lazio yet, next season will tell us more.
Roma has had an erratic season under new manager Paulo Fonseca but you can see what he is trying to build. They had a strong end to the season. They are still in the running in the Europa League and based on current form, I would put them up as dark horses for the Europa League. The biggest threat they face is through their boardroom struggles. The owner James Pallotta wants to sell the club and it looks like they don’t have much money to spend to strengthen unless they generate funds through selling a player.
AC Milan had the best post-lockdown form, they would have ended the season as champions based solely on their post-lockdown form. I strongly believe the signing of Zlatan Ibrahimovic has a lot to do with their upturn in fortune. With his presence, influence and character, the likes of Ante Rebic, Hakan Calhanoglu has stepped up to the mantle. I have been impressed with the tricky, speedy and young Rafael Leao from the first derby of the season. Gianluigi Donnarumma has also been consistent, assured and mature in his performances. Theo Hernandez has been the most consistent and impressive Milan player, playing well from when the team wasn’t doing well all the way to the end of the season. Stefano Pioli was rewarded with a permanent deal as well.
Pioli is a good manager who plays proactive football but I am not sure how much of this upturn in fortune has to do with his management. He went on a great run of wins when he was Inter manager but in that team, he didn’t have a player of the experience and quality of Ibrahimovic. It is still uncertain on whether he would extend his contract beyond the end of this season. The true test for this Milan and Pioli would be when there is no Ibrahimovic in the team.
Napoli end the season as Coppa Italia winners and they too had a good run of results post-lockdown. Gennaro Gattuso has got them to play good football again after the team suffered from the early season turmoil under Carlo Ancelotti. Napoli was tipped to challenge for the league title at the start of the season but made a poor start to the season. The quality in the squad is undoubted and perfect for the quick, short passing game they were known to play first under Rafa Benitez and then taken up another level by Maurizio Sarri.
Elsewhere in the league, Sassuolo under Roberto De Zerbi has produced some fantastic attacking football with Jeremie Boga, Franceso Caputo, Domenico Berardi and Filip Duricic. Their problem has been keeping it out at the other end. Hellas Verona has to be the revelation of the season. They are a newly promoted side and from late January 2020, they have found themselves in the top half of the table. At one stage, they were chasing a European place too like Sassuolo but both teams just fell short. It’s nice to see Ivan Juric do well for a change after underwhelming spells as Genoa manager.
The revelations from this team have been the goalkeeper, Marco Silvestri, defenders, captain Davide Faraoni, Amir Rrahmani, Marash Kumbulla, midfielders Sofyan Amrabat, Miguel Veloso and Matteo Pessina and forward Samuel Di Carmine.
Outside of these teams, Fiorentina ended the season strongly but I felt with the quality in their squad, they could have done better. Parma under Roberto D’Aversa produced some very good football too with Gervinho, Andreas Cornelius and Dejan Kulusevski in the attack. I felt that they were unlucky with some results and could have finished higher. Bologna faced some personal tragedy in the form of manager, Sinisa Mihajlovic’s leukaemia. The Serb showed typical feistiness and character to overcome his ailment and return to the bench. At times they have produced great football too. Finally, Udinese tied with Inter for the most number of clean sheets this season, fourteen. They have been tough to break down but it is goalkeeper Juan Musso that has got a lot of plaudits for his performances in goal.
In the bottom half, SPAL and Brescia have both had a wretched season. No doubts on their relegation then. SPAL’s decline is alarming because they have produced some good performances and results since their promotion to Serie A in 2017–18 under Leonardo Semplici. Semplici was dismissed in February 2020 after the club gave him as much time as possible to turn over the club’s fortunes this season but to no avail.
The final relegation spot was unfortunately taken by Lecce. Lecce under Fabio Liverani has produced some very good attacking football. They have drawn against Juventus and Inter at home, beaten Lazio at home and drew against Milan away. They have caused a problem or two for the big teams but unfortunately have been leaky in defence and not got enough points on the board to stay on for another season.
For a long time, Serie A has a reputation of being a boring, defensive league but ardent watchers of Serie A would have noticed a change in the playing style and philosophy in the last five years at least. This season, 1154 goals were scored in Serie A making it the highest-scoring European league among Europe’s Big 5 leagues, averaging 3.04 goals a match. Not quite boring, isn’t it?
The way the league ended bodes well for the future and I really hope that someone can break Juventus’ stranglehold on the Scudetto next season. Juventus will not stand still and will keep improving their squad. They have already started on that front with the signing of Arthur from Barcelona and Dejan Kulusevski from Atalanta. Inter needs to keep improving and have already signed Achraf Hakimi but more than players, the teams behind Juventus needs to improve in terms of mentality and stability. Atalanta, Lazio, Roma, Milan and Napoli all have good quality players and play well as a team. What they all need is some stability without much sales to disrupt the squad they already have. Quality needs to be added and not removed from the squads and there needs to be stability in the respective clubs.
Besides this cluster of teams, Sassuolo has been known to make astute signings to ensure they keep playing attacking football and cause a few upsets and I hope they can continue doing that. Fiorentina can do a lot better than they did this season but I am not sure they made the right choice in hiring Beppe Iachini permanently as their manager. Bologna has the potential to play some good football and they too could cause a few problems along the way. Cagliari started this season very well before trailing off. Next season, Eusebio Di Francesco is back in management at Cagliari, hopefully, he can bring his Sassuolo brand of football to Cagliari.
We shall see what Filippo Inzaghi’s Benevento brings to Serie A next season. Crotone has also been promoted. The final spot will be decided between Spezia, Pordenone, Cittadella, Chievo, Empoli and Frosinone. We could be in for an exciting and competitive Serie A next season. Serie A looks like it could be on its way back to our glorious past but it will depend on the teams' ability to improve and make the best use of the resources available to them.
