There is an era of dominance that springs to my mind when I think about the country of Italy, and it’s not the age when the Romans were ruling half of the known world or when Mafia mobs were turning New York into their money making playground. It’s a time when Serie A and Italian football in general was thriving; the league was the envy of the world spoilt with the best players of a generation from every nook & cranny of the globe.
If you were an international superstar chances were you were applying your trade in Serie A and living the high life in Rome, Turin, Milan, or Florence, and if you weren’t, you were begging your agent to secure you a move to Italian football. Names such as; Diego Maradona, Roberto Baggio, Marco Van Basten, Ruud Gullit, Liam Brady, George Weah, Paolo Maldini, and Paul Gascoigne just to name a few all donned Italian club jerseys.
Some argue that Jose Mourinho’s departure from Inter in 2010 signalled the beginning of the end for Serie A but in truth the rot had set in long before. In recent times a host of top names have left Italian shores for pastures new viewing the league as a stepping stone and not a destination. Unimaginable the Italian top flight has fallen out of the UFEA Co-efficient top three rankings meaning the league no longer enjoys four Champions’ League places.
I myself must admit that Italian football is a guilty pleasure of mine so it saddens me to see the sorry state of affairs of a once great football institution. I would consider newly promoted Sassuolo to be my team in Italy and they have been for quite a few years. Unfortunately all that comes to mind to most people when they contemplate Italian football these days is match fixing scandals, aging playing squads, empty dated stadia, racism, crowd violence and ultra-defensive football.
So what does all this have to do with Villa? Well as we all know Villa do not have the financial muscle to compete with Europe’s elite or indeed the majority of the Premiership but we can more than compete with 99% of the Italian clubs in the transfer market. The signing of Libor Kozak from Lazio this summer shows Lambert’s net reaches the realm of Serie A, as does the strong links to Philippe Coutinho last year when he was at Inter prior to his signing for Liverpool. So could shopping in the Italian aisle of the transfer market a little more aid Villa in evolving to be a better side thus kick starting a claret & blue Renaissance?
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