Last season was an utter disappointment for Italian teams on the big stages in Europe, but Serie A’s top teams have spent this summer prepping to turn things around next year.
It looked like Serie A had turned a corner a couple of years ago when Roma made it to the semifinal of the Champions League, marking the 3rd season out of 4 where an Italian team made it to the semifinal. That season also marked the first time since the 2006-07 season that two Italian teams made it to the quarterfinals in the same year.
Unfortunately, that triumphant season was followed by one where Napoli blew leads in both matches against PSG despite outplaying the French squad and failed to score at Red Star Belgrade, eventually being sent down to the Europa League because of a tiebreaker. Meanwhile, Inter Milan looked to have locked down a spot in the knockout stages, but managed to blow it in the last couple of matches, losing to Tottenham to once again give them a chance to advance and then drawing at home against a PSV Eindhoven side with nothing to play for.
Roma looked absolutely hopeless from the start of the season and their performances in their Champions League group didn’t do much to inspire confidence in their ability to make another run in the competition. They were absolutely dismantled by Real Madrid twice and only avoided a truly embarrassing result in the first match because Robin Olsen was fantastic. Then they lost at Viktoria Plzen, which was a disappointing result even for last year’s Roma. They were given a glimmer of hope by their draw, but even managed to make that meaningless when they were eliminated by Porto.
Juventus was arguably the biggest disappointment of all. When they brought in Cristiano Ronaldo last season it was supposed to be the move that would finally win them a Champions League trophy. Instead they looked sluggish throughout the season and needed a miraculous comeback to even make it to the quarterfinal stage and then looked awful against a young Ajax squad.
Things weren’t any better in the Europa League, where Napoli was the only team to make it to the quarterfinals, but it looks like things are about to turn around. Juventus, Napoli, and Inter Milan have all made big signings this summer that should make them contenders in the Champions League again.
Juventus made one of the biggest signings in all of Europa when they added Matthijs de Ligt to their defense. On top of that, they finally addressed the big issue in their midfield, the lack of an attack-minded midfielder, when they acquired Aaron Ramsey as a Bosman transfer. Then they added Adrien Rabiot to the midfield, giving them their strongest midfield since the MVP midfield broke up. The loss of Joao Cancelo hurt, but this is absolutely a stronger Juventus squad than the one we saw struggle in the Champions League last season and they might not be done making moves yet. They have been linked with mauro Icardi for much of the transfer window and could have one last big move left even if they don’t get Icardi. They also replaced Massimiliano Allegri with Maurizio Sarri, which should completely change their style of play and help unlock the extraordinary attacking talent available to Juve.
Inter Milan could make the argument that they had the biggest summer out of any team in Serie A. Their transfer window started with the signing of Diego Godin on a Bosman and ended with their biggest move of the summer, signing Romelu Lukaku. In between they signed Antonio Conte as their new manager and acquired Nicolo Barella, Valentino Lazaro, and Stefano Sensi who all figure to play a big part in a reinvented Inter squad this season. None of the players that left this summer should make too big of an impact on the squad, but adding proven winners like Godin and Conte might just be the move Inter needed to end years of underachieving.
Napoli’s transfer window has been the quietest of the big teams in Serie A, but that doesn’t mean
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they were unsuccessful. The signing of Kostas Manolas gives them one of the world’s most formidable center back pairings. The rest of the world already had to deal with Napoli’s elite attack, but now they’ll also have to find ways to score against a defense that features Manolas and Kalidou Koulibaly. That will be an unbelievably difficult task for any squad. That move coupled with the departure of Marek Hamsik and continued development of young talents like Fabian Ruiz, Alex Meret, and Arkadiusz Milik should make them a formidable opponent for anybody next season.
Atalanta has mostly just held on to what they have this summer, which will put them in a tough spot as a pot 4 team, but if they drop to the Europa League then the fact that they kept a talented core together should be enough for them to make a run in Europe’s secondary tournament.
Last season, only two of Italy’s teams made it out of their groups and only Juve made it to the quarterfinals. With all of the improvements being made this season it wouldn’t be shocking to see 3 teams make it out of their groups or even if 3 made it to the quarterfinals. Obviously a lot of this will depend on the way the way these teams develop and the group stage draws. However, things are looking up for Serie A right now.
We are still a few weeks away from groups being drawn and over a month away from the start of the group stage, but Serie A’s best have been taking all of the right steps towards becoming the best in all of Europe once again.