First my lot Inter were blitzed into a humiliating second place finish in the group stages. I don't know which result was more pathetic; the loss at White Hart Lane or conceding 3 second half goals to ten man Spurs and narrowly winning 4-3. Inter were abominable for the first half of the season, costing Rafa Benitez the job he hardly deserved to hold.
And now it is AC Milan's turn to be humiliated. Losing 1-0 at home in the knockout stages of the Champions League, against the 4th seeded English team, is unacceptable, full stop.
I have no problem with Tottenham performing well. It is heartening to see new blood on the European scene (they do, admittedly, have more money than most European league champions). But for them to have triumphed over the reigning European and Serie A champions and the current Italian league leaders is a travesty for Italian football, and the traditions of these two clubs.
It has got to the stage where people don't even bother to hate teams like Milan, as I spent my childhood doing. They were slow, they dived and time wasted, they had Pippo Inzaghi- it wasn't difficult to dislike them. Now, people don't even have an opinion on one of Europe's greatest sides, a side that won two Champions League trophies in the past decade.
On 5 Live call in after the match, a 'die hard Spurs fan' called Jeff referred to "the bloke that headbutted Joe Jordan". Yeah, that bloke Gennaro Gattuso. A two time European champion and World Cup winner. For fucks sake, he's not just some bloke you tosser. Who the fuck are you?
The simple truth is than no-one is following Italian football anymore. Sky only show Barcelona these days, and even most ESPN subscribers can't be bothered to watch their wide selection of Calcio (or German or Dutch football for that matter). This in itself is a shame, as Italian football is probably the most culturally interesting in the world. It seems that only my dad and I, with our slightly middle-class fixation with all things Italian, appreciate it any more.
Nobody watches Italian football because, compared to it's historical precedent, it is boring and low quality. It is simply not anywhere near the level it was at even five years ago, which was hardly it's greatest hour. The distance between Italian clubs now and in 2001-2002, arguably the finest league season ever, is about as great as the distance from my house in Scotland to the villa I'm going on holiday to in Abruzzo.
AC and Inter still have lots of money. They just seem startlingly unconcerned about their declining fortunes. AC haven't bothered to rejuvinate their side for 9 years, preferring to add occasional show pony's here and there to stave off chronic team arthritis.
And yet, the addition of two 'mercurial' (cough, ahem) strikers, Robinho and Zlatan Ibrahimovic, has been more than enough to take Milan to the top of Serie A. Yes, it really is that bad; Ibrahimovic can win you the league simply by turning up it seems.
How bad are Inter? Very, very bad. How bad are Roma? Abysmal. How bad are Juventus? Pretty bad, but they are so unbearably boring it's hard to notice. They make the 2003 Champions League final losers look like Brazil 1970.
Results come in peaks and troughs, and perhaps Serie A will rise up again soon. After all, the Bundesliga was terrible for 20 years but has gotten better simply by maintaining strong crowds (incidently, this is another area that many Italian sides are failing in). But, at the risk of perpetuating the old order and stagnating progress, the very top teams in Europe should be immune to the overall fortunes of their domestic leagues. AC and Inter, Real and Barca, Bayern and Man United and Ajax and Anderlecht; they should all be able to uphold their reputations.
Instead, they are losing to goals by Peter Crouch. Is the old order such a bad thing really?
GM
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