The symbolism of Christian Vieri and Ronaldo turning up to watch Inter get knocked out of the Champions League by Bodo/Glimt wasn’t lost on anyone. The Nerazzurri may be the strongest side in Serie A right now, but Italian football is no longer producing world-class strikers like the former Azzurri ace or signing superstars like ‘Il Fenomeno’.
As Thierry Henry quipped in the CBS Sports studio before kick-off, “They could do with both of you tonight!” Ronaldo responded, “We could maybe play five minutes!” Inter fans probably would have taken him up on that offer!
More than 70,000 of them – almost double the population of Bodo – had arrived at San Siro hoping to see their side prove that the plastic pitch was the problem in last week’s shocking 3-1 first-leg loss. They instead witnessed a Norwegian team put on a show at ‘La Scala del Calcio’ for the second time in three months that made a complete mockery of Italian football.
Juventus legend Alessandro Del Piero joked about being on the verge of tears before the play-off round second legs, given all three Italian teams were trailing on aggregate, and the nation’s reigning champions, Napoli, had failed to even get out of the league phase. However, the Juventus legend did argue that “not everything is as bad as it seems”. And he had a point. At least in the case of Atalanta, who really shouldn’t be cast in anything like the same negative light as Inter, Juve or Napoli.
“This is a match that will go down in history, not just here in Bergamo for all the Atalanta fans, but for Italian football as a whole,” coach Raffaelle Palladino told Sky Sport Italia. “I heard a lot of comments about Italian football and I think it ought to be protected, above all from the inside. We are too harsh when things don’t go well, we need more constructive criticism, to be a bit more positive, and we proved that this evening.”
Atalanta, though, are something of a rarity in Italy: a wonderfully well-run club renowned for its ability to both identify and develop young players before later selling them at an enormous profit – while at same time remaining competitive in Serie A and Europe. Indeed, La Dea’s dismantling of Xabi Alonso’s seemingly unbeatable Bayer Leverkusen in the final of the 2024 Europa League was the culmination of an ambitious, long-term project rooted in the economic reality of modern football that provided the perfect template for other Serie A sides to follow.
However, while Bologna and a very well-funded Como are also now showing what’s possible with a clear, coherent strategy, Italy’s top teams are nowhere near as shrewd, stable – or even successful.
