Italy: 2006-2007 Serie A Preview

A sign of things to come: Zanetti & Inter beat Roma to the title - well, the Supercopa title that is.





So last night I sat down, cappucino and tiramisu at my side for added inspiration (and energy), to write this year's Serie A preview, and sat there stumped, unable to type much of anything for hours. I mean, what can you say about this summer's soccer news in Italy? Did anything happen? Were there any signings? Any controversies? Anything? Well, no news is good news, I guess. Barring any last-minute changes, here's my top five: Juventus, Milan, Inter, Fiorentina, and Lazio. Pretty much the same as last year. Good luck trying to argue that.

All kidding aside, where do you start a preview of Serie A? The biggest club in the country is in Serie B now and must overcome a 17-point penalty just to make it back to the big leagues. The second-biggest club in the country is still in Serie A but has its own 8-point penalty to deal with. One of the feel-good teams of last year also has a point penalty, not to mention a star striker that spent half the summer trying to leave. Even the Azzurri's World Cup win proved less enjoyable and harder to understand than it should have: after De Rossi's first-round elbow, the controversial win over Australia, and Materazzi's foul play in the final, was anyone outside of the Boot really all that happy to see the Italians win it all? And how was it that a team loaded with talents like Luca Toni, Alex Del Piero, Filippo Inzaghi, Alberto Gilardino and Andrea Pirlo only put together one truly impressive performance (the 2-0 semifinal win over Germany)? Maybe the answer is a testament to the shocking indictment of Italian soccer that is the Serie A scandal. Even though it proved to be a galvanizing boost for the national team in the World Cup and no punishments were handed out until a week after the final in Berlin, the scandal seemed to overshadow everything.

For many years now, Italian soccer has been viewed with more than a healthy dose of suspicion - when a country has a history of corruption like Italy's, it's not hard to understand why, but most of the skepticism also stemmed from the clearly preferential treatment enjoyed by leading clubs Juventus and AC Milan. Some chalked this bias down to the fact that both clubs were Northern powers - Italy has long been a country with a deep-rooted North/South rivalry; but one need look no further than the highly dubious calls that went against AC Milan's city rivals Internazionale to realize that this was no regional issue. And as it was revealed in a court of law this summer, it wasn't: Juve and Milan had been part of a group of teams that was wielding far too much power over referees, from which referees handled which games to what calls these referees made in said games. The aforementioned Lazio and Fiorentina were also implicated. When all four clubs were hit with harsh punishments, count me among the many who were surprised that justice had been served. But not so fast - all four clubs appealed and all four had their punishments reduced. Despite promises to the contrary, Juve's board members were in fact not all willing to accept their demotion to Serie B, so the appeals process went on. And on. And on. And around the world, soccer fans watched in horror as one of the world's greatest soccer leagues had turned into a farcical circus of lawyers, board members, and state tribunals. Somehow, after all the damage done by the initial proceedings, the guilty parties managed to make matters worse by continuing to deny, deny, deny...appeal, appeal, appeal. So here we are, in the last days of August, still two weeks away from the kick-off of this season's Calcio. And how can one possibly predict it all, what with the corruption of past years and this year's point penalties? Damned if I know, so here goes nothing:

For starters, the team on the wrong end of so many calls in recent years, Inter, now finds itself as the defending champion (despite finishing last year 15 points behind Juve and 12 behind Milan). Moreover, no team in Europe (not even Chelski or Real) managed to spend more than Inter this summer. For a little added salt on the proverbial wounds, they raided the Old Lady for Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Patrick Vieira. Massimo Moratti also signed Maxwell from Ajax, Maicon from Monaco, Fabio Grosso from Palermo, Olivier Dacourt from Roma and, from Chelsea, they got Hernan Crespo to complete the most outrageous group of strikers in recent memory: along with Ibra and Crespo, the Nerazzurri already have the likes of Adriano, Julio Cruz, and Alvaro Recoba. All of this meant that Inter themselves had to offload some talented youngsters, such as Obafemi Martins (to Newcastle) and David Pizarro (Roma). The question on everyone's minds is not if Inter have enough talent to, um, repeat as champions, but if they (specifically, coach Roberto Mancini) can mold such a bloated, ego-laden group of superstars into a coherent unit capable of equalling the sum of its parts. With an eight-point cushion to work with, they should be okay. Plus, the refs won't be conspiring against them for once. Still, if there's one team that could find a way to blow this, it's Inter. And if they do, God help them - but this has to be the first time in a long time that a team is almost in a no-win situation to start the season. If they win, then all of their rivals will claim that the season should always have an asterisk next to it. If they lose, well, let's just say that there could be dead bodies all over the San Siro & I wouldn't be surprised. They could be the first team to win back-to-back Serie A titles and not really get any credit or respect for them. Ahh, Inter - gotta love em.

Across town, AC Milan have done nothing, absolutely positively nothing, to inspire confidence. They lost their best player, Shevchenko, to Chelsea and replaced him with...Ricardo Oliveira?!? This guy is a Brazilian who managed to convince his former club Real Betis to let him go rehab from an injury in Brazil in the hope that he might be able to get fit in time to impress the national team coach to call him up for the World Cup. And when it comes time to go back to Betis this summer, what does he do? He bails on them, refuses to return to Spain, and then demands a transfer. Class act, that Oliveira. Other than him, the Rossoneri have signed a promising French kid, Yohan Gourcuff, and that's about it. Combine the fact that this is a thin, aging squad with an 8-point deficit and all in all, Milan will be fine with just securing a Champions League spot for next year and putting this whole fiasco behind them. With Kaka and Pirlo and Nesta still sporting the red and black, Milan should be able to do just that.

Outside the San Siro, there's just not much to be excited about. A lot of cavernous, empty stadiums, flare-throwing fans, and defensive-oriented catenaccio doesn't exactly get me fired up to watch some footie on weekend afternoons. Maybe the only other reason to pay attention to Serie A this year is a really good youth movement going on down at Roma. A la Arsenal and Borussia Dortmund and Sevilla, Roma have opted to bring in the best youngsters around and this approach is starting to pay off. This summer, the Giallorossi have brought in the aforementioned Chilean, Pizarro, and Serb striker Mirko Vucinic. These two should bring more offensive firepower to a side that already has Francesco Totti, Roberto Taddei, Vincenzo Montella, Daniele De Rossi and Mancini; at the back, Christian Chivu and Phillippe Mexes give the Romans one of the best defensive partnerships in the world. If there is any squad that can legitimately challenge Inter and Milan this year, it's Roma. And when all is said and done, that's exactly what they'll do, but look for Inter to have too much depth and experience to let this Scudetto slip away.

1. Inter
2. Roma (good to see Diadora is still churning out quality unis, from here to Scotland)
3. Milan
4. Parma (this year's Cinderella story)
5. Udinese
6. Palermo (a solid season last year, plus a great, intimidating stadium to call home)
7. Sampdoria
8. Chievo
9. Fiorentina (keeping Toni was huge)
10. Lazio (you know how we feel about sky-blue unis here at WSB)