Leonardo
While the winter break in Serie A does not truly mark the midway point of the 2009-2010 Serie A season, it does provide a good opportunity to take a look at how things are trending in Italy’s top flight league.
After winning every Scudetto since the 2005-2006 Season, the Nerazzurri entered the winter break at the top of the table with 39 points in 17 matches played. Inter is 8 points ahead of second place Milan. Unless Inter seriously stumbles during the 2010 portion of the season, I expect that Inter will pick up its 5th straight Scudetto.
The speculation about whether or not he’ll return to the English Premier League and his constant battles with the Italian press have overshadowed the fact that Jose Mourinho, in his second season coaching Inter, has adapted quiet well to Serie A. While Mourinho has not made many changes to the squad he inherited from Roberto Mancini, did bring in Mancini, Sulley Muntari, and Ricardo Quaresma prior to the 2008-2009 Serie A season. Of these three players, Muntari has had the most success at Inter while Mancini and Quaresma have struggled to find playing time. This past summer, after losing Adrian, Figo, Julio Cruz, and Hernan Crespo, Mourinho brought in Diego Milito, Thiago Motta, and Wesley Sneijder, and he made the big Zlatan Ibrahimovic trade to Barcelona for Samuel Eto’o. Overall, the addition of these players has proved more beneficial to Inter then the moves made the previous summer. With the addition of Goran Pandev during this winter’s transfer window, Mourinho has managed to turn Inter into an even stronger team that could easily dominate the rest of Serie A through the end of the season.
A strong start in January will be important for Inter because the sooner they can separate from the rest of the pack in Serie A, the sooner they can focus on the UEFA Champions League. Inter sacked Mancini and brought in Mourinho in 2008 with the winning the Champions League as the key goal for the club. If Mourinho does not lead Inter to at least the semi-finals of the Champions League this year, he might find himself back in England sooner then he expected.
Meanwhile, things are far from stable at two of Serie A’s most storied clubs: Milan and Juventus. Both of these teams entered the season with new, unproven coaches, who have experienced shifting fortunes in their first tenures.
Brazilian and Milan legend Leonardo took the helm of his former team after Carlo Ancelotti left Italy for the coaching job at Chelsea. After beating Siena, 2-1, in the season opener, Leonardo’s side was destroyed by Inter, 0-4, in the Derby della Madonnina. Milan struggled over the next several weeks and it looked like Leonardo’s job was in trouble, but the team finally clicked in October either winning or drawing all of their games until December 13th when Palermo beat them 2-0 at the San Siro. Coming into the winter break, Milan managed to secure the second spot on the table with 31 points. Milan will host Genoa on the Epiphany this week, and MLS and England fans will be watching to see if Leonardo starts the newly arrived, on loan, David Beckham.
After Claudio Ranieri was sent packing by Juventus, the Old Lady hired Italian Ciro Ferrara to coach the team back to its former glory. Ferrara, who spent twenty years playing in Serie A, was an assistant coach with the Italian National Team, so he had more coaching experience then Leonardo. Unlike Milan, Juventus got off to a strong start and didn’t lose a match until October 31st when Napoli, the club where Ferrara started his playing career, beat Juventus 3-2. After that first loss, Juventus closed out 2009 by going 3-3 in league play. The bright spot for Juventus was beating Inter 2-1 on December 5th, but like Milan, Juventus’s last match of December ended in a loss to Catania, which put them in third place on the table with 30 points. We’ll get a chance to see if the winter break has given Juventus the time needed to find their winning form this Wednesday when they head to Parma.
Parma, which spent last season in Serie B, has proved to be one of the biggest surprises of the season. After 17 matches, they have 28 points and are tied in 4th place with Roma. Speaking of Roma, a rough start to the season led to the September 1st resignation of Luciano Spalletti who was replaced by former Juventus coach Claudio Ranieri. After finding themselves in the low middle of the table, and losing to a then relegation zone Livorno, Roma found its watershed moment for the season on November 1st when they beat Bologna 2-1. Since that victory, Roma has not lost a fixture, picked up a draw with Inter, beat Lazio in the Derby della Capitale, and kept a clean sheet in December. Luca Toni will be joining Roma for the remainder of the season, strengthening an already strong offense, and providing insurance for those times when Totti is out injured. Roma heads to Sardinia this Wednesday where they’ll take on mid-table Cagliari.
While Spalletti was the first coach to leave his Serie A position this season, he was, by no means, the only Serie A coach to find himself back on the job market. On September 21st Atlanta’s Angelo Gregucci was the first coach to be officially sacked, and his sacking was followed by the sackings of Napoli’s Roberto Donadoni, Bologna’s Giuseppe Papadapulo, Livorno’s Vittoio Russo, Siena’s Marco Giampaolo, Palermo’s Walter Zenga, Siena Marco Baroni, Catania’s Gianluca Atzori, and, finally, Udinese’s Pasquale Marino. That’s quite the turnover, and Marino is most likely not going to be the last coach to get sacked in Serie A this season.
The teams in Italy that really need to see a change in their fortunes, or misfortunes, after this winter break are Atalanta, Catania, and Siena who all find themselves in the relegation zone. Meanwhile Lazio and Bologna find themselves only 3 points above the drop zone. Note that none of these all of these clubs were in Serie A last season.
This winter break in Serie A is a short one and matches resume again on Wednesday, the Epiphany. The game to pay the most attention to this Wednesday is Parma v. Juventus, since it will be a good opportunity to see whether Juventus can still challenge Inter for the title. Meanwhile, the big match up this weekend is going to be Milan v. Juventus.
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