It's a money issue. Clubs like Samp and Palermo can't manage big, sizeable squads, enough to compete in both the domestic league and Europe. Rather than waste money on players, some of who might not even play, others who may be disgruntled being on the bench, mid-table serie a teams would rather focus on the domestic league instead.
No way, I put money on Genoa and Samp any day of the week. Anyone who watched Genoa take on Valenica, both legs would agree with me here. Teams like Cagliari play better quality football than the top 4 german sides but they can't compete monetarily. Plus serie a teams really lack depth. Like Palermo in the beginning of the season when Liverani was out injured.
I'm sure they have more money than most serie a teams. More than Roma, surely.
Man, you really underestimate the quality of italian football. What about Palermo and Fiorentina? If they had half the money that West Ham spews out on wages, maybe then you'd see.
couldn't agree more rfu, Serie A for me is still a great league. There are so many quality teams every weekend is a struggle as we witnessed friday against catania. Whats hurting serie a lately is that the teams at the very top who represent us in europe are in a down period.
Milan has been aging and losing quality for a long time now, the cl win in 2007 hurts them in the long run as they've done nothing to reinforce the squad for the future. Juve is struggling to get back to the top after being sent to serie b and Roma has severe financial problems.
Fiorentina got robbed and made a great showing for themselves in CL.
So when serie a's top sides don't do well in europe people who never watch serie a and have been jealous of the italian dominance over the years kick us while we're down and do everything to make us look bad.
the truth is serie a has great depth and from top to bottom imo is the on par with the premiere league and better than la liga. Definetley better than bundesliga and ligue 1.
There are class sides like palermo, napoli, cagliari, bari, genoa, sampdoria, roma, fiorentina, udinese. You always get tough games from teams like chievo, catania, atalanta. Lazio is stil a quality side and they are battling for relegation. This is the true strength of serie a.
rfu hit it on the head, the problem is these clubs don't have the financial strength to compete on both fronts or even keep there sides together. They are forced to sell there key players and do a great job rebuilding year after year. So when teams have a great season in serie a and qualify for europe, the next year when they are in those competitions its not the same team.
Genoa is a good example, they played very well in the europa league and very unfortuneate not to advance. If they still had the team they had last year they would have done alot better. They lost milito and motta who were instrumental in there success last year.