The China Mail - Italian football suffers new blow with Champions League misery

Roma collapsed against Real Madrid at the Stadio Olimpico, conceding three goals in the final seven minutes to lose 4–3 on Wednesday.

"We went from a moment of great euphoria to deep disappointment," bemoaned Roma coach Gian Piero Gasperini.

In their first Champions League home match since 2018, Roma let a famous win slip from their grasp despite leading 3-1.

Inter Milan, runners-up in 2023 and 2025, fell to the most surprising loss for the Italian quartet, stunned by a hat-trick from Italian-German sensation Nicolo Tresoldi in a 4-3 defeat by Club Brugge at the San Siro.

In their first-ever Champions League away match, ambitious Como took an early lead in Rotterdam only to ultimately go down 3–2 to Feyenoord.

A similar fate befell Napoli, who scored first at Villarreal before losing their footing in Spain and being beaten 3-1.

With the exception of Inter, every Serie A team led at some point, yet none managed to hold onto their advantage.

Defending narrow leads was long considered a hallmark of Italian clubs, who have won 12 European Cups and reached 30 finals between them.

Seven-time champions AC Milan and two-time winners Juventus failed to qualify for the competition this season.

- 'Forgotten how to defend' -

"Have they forgotten how to defend in Italian football?" asked former Milan and Real Madrid coach Fabio Capello.

With the notable exception of 15-time European champions Real Madrid, the Serie A teams' conquerors on matchday two of the league phase were relatively modest opposition.

"Knowing how to defend has almost become something to be ashamed of," said Napoli coach Massimiliano Allegri.

"In the Champions League, opponents make very few mistakes. You have to be patient and stay focused on the ball. All these goals conceded clearly show that much greater attention is required defensively."

The recent European record of reigning Italian champions Inter has been disastrous, losing seven of their last eight Champions League matches.

Debate regarding the standard of the Italian top flight has reignited.

Serie A clubs spent heavily in the close season, but their financial might is still dwarfed by that of England's Premier League giants and Champions League holders Paris Saint-Germain.

Compared to the golden days of the 1990s, when Italian clubs regularly broke the world-record transfer fee, the country struggles to attract the best players from abroad.

None of the four Serie A sides who competed in the Champions League last season, Inter Milan, Napoli, Juventus and Atalanta, made it past the last 16.

That was the fourth time in six seasons Italy was not represented in the quarter-finals, after a run of having at least one team in the last eight in 15 of the previous 18 years.

The national team failed to reach the World Cup earlier this year, losing a qualifying play-off to Bosnia and Herzegovina as the four-time world champions missed out for a third straight edition.

The Azzurri have not even played a World Cup knockout match since beating France in the 2006 final on penalties.

Since the return of Roberto Mancini as coach in August, Italy have shown signs of a resurgence, holding France to a 1-1 draw at the Stade de France on October 2 and posting two Nations League wins over Turkey.

But in the Champions League, the four Italian clubs have mustered just four points -- three for Cesc Fabregas's Como and one for Roma -- and are languishing towards the bottom of the standings.

Real Madrid coach Jose Mourinho, however, does not share the prevailing Italian pessimism, despite leading his side to wins over his former club Inter and Roma in recent weeks.

"Both Inter and Roma are truly at a very high level," insisted Mourinho, the last coach to win the European Cup for a Serie A team with Inter in 2010.

Inter, Roma, Napoli and Como all have winnable home Champions League matches as they look to bounce back next week, against Shakhtar Donetsk, Slovan Bratislava, Bodo/Glimt and a floundering Manchester United respectively.

J.Thompson--ThChM