This eurozone came out for Italian football saturated and contrasting. Some matches provoked conversations about the unprecedented crisis of Calco, others - the revival of past glory. If you evaluate, avoiding categorical assessments, then you should not let off, but steady progress. Italy this season earned a coefficient of 17. 333, second only to Spain and England. The growth is obvious: last season the Italians scored 14. 250, in the year before - only 11. 500. True, to the level of the season-2014/15 (19. 000) was still unable to reach, but that figure was an exception. Even in the 2009/10 season, when Inter won the Champions League, Serie A got less (15. 428).
Italy was ranked third in the summary table for five years, having managed to break away from Germany. The top five leaders are: Spain - 106. 426, England - 79. 605, Italy - 76. 249, Germany - 71. 427, France - 56. 415. This has no special consequences, because due to the changes in the regulations the first four countries send four teams to the group stage, but adds prestige. Too long Italians were not in the top three - if more precisely, since 2010.
One more indicative moment: now for Italy not only Juventus. Turin, starting with the season-2012/13 (a season earlier Juve, by the way, did not play at all in European competition), always scored more points in Europe than any other Italian club. This time the tradition was interrupted - Roma had a higher ratio. Serie A still has not lost the status of the "championship of one team", but the hegemony of Juventus continues because of its strength and stability, and not because of the weakness of the rest. In turn, other Italian top clubs are already ready to periodically "shoot" at the European level. We will estimate, how all of them have acted this time.
Juventus.
Final stage: 1/4 finals Champions League: + 5 = 3-2, 14-13 Best match: Tottenham (d) - 2: 1 Worst match: Real Madrid (d) - 0: 3 Central figure: Giorgio Chiellini, hero ending in London and one of the main antiheroes of home defeat from Real Madrid Key point: a penalty in Madrid, which caused a scandal of colossal proportions and Buffon's phrase about "trash instead of the heart" Feature: Gianluigi Buffon never won the Champions League Rating: 6.5 (here and further - on a 10-point scale, used to assess the actions of players) The dream remained a dream. Juventus again did not get the Champions Cup, moreover, did not even go to the final, as it was twice already at Allegri. Nevertheless, the season can not be called a failure. He was pulled by the victory over Tottenham. High-speed British brought Juve a lot of inconvenience, and after the match in Turin even beaten out in the favorites of the pair, but the "bianconeri" got the result in their style, due to the exact calculation and the stunning realization. The home failure with Real Madrid was more or less compensated for by the heroic almost "comeback" to Santiago Bernabeu, so we ascertain: Juventus once again squeezes the maximum out of its far from irreproachable (by the standards of the decisive stages of the Champions League).
Roma.
Final stage: Champions League semi-final Performance: + 6 = 2-4, 21-19 Best match: Barcelona (d) - 3: 0 Worst match: Liverpool (d) - 2: 5 Central figure: Edin Dzeko, who scored five games in a row the Champions League play-off The key moment: the episode on the draw of the quarter-finals, when Totti unfolded a piece of paper with the inscription "Barcelona". Feature: an excellent game in his field, where the Romans won 5 of 6 matches; this contrasts with the championship of Italy, where Roma, on the contrary, often stumbles on the Olympic Rating: 8 Opening of the season, and not only in Italy, but throughout Europe. Roma in the previous years very rarely succeeded performances in European competition. Whatever it was: the rout at 1: 7, the flights of modest opponents, failures in the group stage or immediately in the qualification. Roma for many years was an example of a team without a character, but with the arrival of Di Francesco everything changed radically. This difficult season, which began with the forced sale of Salah, brought the "dzhallorossi" fame well beyond the Boot - it is indicative that immediately after the return match with Barcelona Roma had a prestigious title sponsor ("Qatar Airways"). The Romans constantly balanced on the brink, it's enough to recall the Kharkov match with Shakhtar, which could well have ended with a score of 3: 1. Sometimes things went very sadly (a monstrous piece on Anfield, when Liverpool was able to score ten pieces), but Roma invariably returned. She missed just one goal before the overtime in the semifinals. Or two penalties - you know what you're talking about. It turned out a beautiful and slightly tragic story, partly reminiscent of the performance of Deportivo in the season-2003/04. Now Roma, as well as other Italian pretenders, has a standard.
Napoli.
Final stage: group stage of Champions League, 1/16 finals LE Indicators: + 5 = 0-5, 18-14 Best match: Shakhtar (d) - 3: 0, but the first half of the home game with Man City was aesthetically beautiful The worst match : Leipzig (d) - 1: 3 Central figure: Maurizio Sarri, who set priorities for this season. The key moment: a match with Shakhtar in Kharkov, when Diavara, Zelinski and Milik came out from the first minutes. Feature: Napoli, even flying, showed his strength , finally confidently defeating both Shakhtar and Leipzig Score: 4 Neapolitans openly sacrificed European competition. Their priority was the championship, which was not even concealed by the president and head coach. Fans, that is characteristic, did not complain. Moreover, they voted with their feet: the home matches of the Champions League with Shakhtar and Feyenoord came with fewer spectators than a game with any outsider of Serie A. The city dreams of "scudetto", and not about the conditional quarter-final of the Champions League. The victim, it seems, did not justify herself, but play Napoli in full force on two fronts - not the fact that the champion's intrigue would last until May. In general, you can understand Sarri and De Laurentiisa, but the international prestige of Calco such an attitude only harms. Napoli really took seriously only to the qualification of the Champions League, convincingly outplayed Nice. If Southerners focus on European competition, Italy will get another serious fighter.
Atalanta.
Final stage: 1/16 finals LE Indicators: + 4 = 3-1, 17-8 Best match: Everton (g) - 5: 1 Worst match: Apollo (g) - 1: 1, choice conditional Central figure: Brian Kristante , scoring Everton three goals in two matches The key point: two points - the endings of both matches against Borussia Feature: the team played the league matches not in Bergamo (the stadium did not meet the requirements of UEFA), and in Reggio Emilia, where Sassuolo performs. European Cups are taken by a team from the Italian province, it rarely has to wait for success. More often it's the other way around, it's enough to recall the "exploits" of Empoli or Chievo. Atalanta is a pleasant exception. The opening team of last season has withstood both the sale of a number of leaders and the double load test. She only retreated a little in the championship, but more than adequately performed in the European League, after going through a difficult group with Lyon and Everton, and the British were routed with a total score of 8: 1. Bergamaski is not lucky to get into the playoffs at Dortmund Borussia. These matches were the decoration stage. Atalante, alas, did not have enough experience and endurance - both times (2: 3 at a party, 1: 1 at home) she missed at the last minute. Anyway, the performance of Atalanta is an undoubted positive. I would like to see such a team on a regular basis in Europe, preferably with my own stadium.
Lazio.
Final stage: 1/4 finals LE Indicators: + 7 = 2-3, 26-17 Best match: Steaua (d) - 5: 1 Worst match: Salzburg (g) - 1: 4 Central figure: Ciro Immobile, who scored 8 The key moment: the goal of Haidar at the 72nd minute of the game in Salzburg, after which Lazio swam. Feature: the Roman swing - Lazio was considered the main hope of Italy, but in one week gave up this title to Roma : 6 "Eagles" climbed two stages further, but their score is lower. First, from Lazio initially waited a little more. Secondly, on the way they have never met a rival from the top championship. The team Simone Inzaghi responsibly approached the Europa League, convincingly winning the group (four wins in four starting rounds), but the playoffs began to fail. Twice, with Steaua and Dynamo, the Romans had to strain in the second leg to compensate for the unsuccessful results. What got worse was the reverse option, when Lazio came to Austria with a two-goal handicap and even opened the scoring at home, and then just collapsed, conceding three goals in four minutes. "Biancochaelisti" was able to get into the finals, but the defense, including the goalkeeper, openly let. Now, "Latsiali" is quite successfully fighting for getting into the Champions League, only for the main European tournament these rear lines are completely inappropriate, and after all, at the end of the season, the leading defender leaves, Stefan de Vrey.
Milan.
Final stage: 1/8 LE Indicators: + 9 = 2-3, 30-9 Best match: Arsenal (d) - 1: 3, no matter how strange it may look. Worst match: Arsenal (d) - 0: 2 The central figure : Leonardo Bonucci, mistaken often and sometimes quite ridiculously. The key moment: a fictitious penalty in London at a score of 1-0 in favor of Milan. Feature: high attendance of home qualifying matches with Craiova (65,763) and Shkendia (40,613) - fans craved to see the new Milan Score: 5.5 "Rossoneri" returned to the European Cup after four years, and this in itself is wonderful. Milan had plenty of fun in the LE, delighted with his visits a number of cities in Eastern Europe. Such rivals the team of Montella / Gattuso passed without much stress, but the first serious test was insurmountable. Arsenal, itself far from the ideal, showed that the class of players and the class of the team - the concepts are somewhat different.
Yes, with a clause about the return match, when the impulse of Milan stopped the referee, but in general, Arsenal was much stronger, surpassing the Milanese in both speed and mutual understanding. I want to believe that these matches have become an invaluable experience. For example, Borussia Jurgen Klopp did not immediately come to the finals of the Champions League, before it happened a series of failed seasons. The team at Gattuso is young, and it's true - the average age of the base fluctuates around 25 years. Will these guys make Milan great again?.