SUIYHA
Scott Parker
With all the buzz about Lamela, it has got me thinking. Serie A has fallen way behind the Premiership, La Liga and the Bundesliga. My concern is, is a player who looks like a star in that league actually all that good? We are spending a huge amount of money on him.
When I was a kid, there were some outstanding Italian sides. IIRC there were six Champions League finals in a row in the 90s that featured an Italian side. And Serie A was a great place to look to import hugely talented footballers to the Premier League. Think Zola, Bergkamp, Vialli, Di Canio, Henry, Desailly, Carbone. But now? It's awful. I can't remember the last time a player came over from Serie A and took the league by storm like these guys did. Not only that, but Serie A clubs are badly struggling in Europe. Since Mourinho's Inter managed to defend their way to winning the thing in 2010, Italy haven't had a single Champions League semi-finalist, and they haven't had more than one club in the quarter-finals since 2007.
I have watched over the last decade or so as clubs continue to spend phenomenal amounts of money on importing players from Serie A to the Premier League, only to see a player who looked like a world beater in Italy badly struggle with the pace and physicality of our game. The first major Serie A flop signing I can remember in the Premier League (not counting Ramon Vega, Nicola Berti or Paolo Tramezzani) was Juan Sebastian Veron. £28m was the British transfer record at the time and he was a mega superstar coming to the Premier League. We had big name players in the Premier League, but up until his transfer most of the big money international signings seemed to be going to either Italy or Spain, so it was exciting to see one now coming to England. For Lazio, he'd been the driving force in helping them to win Serie A. His silky skills and passing ability were supposed to be the missing piece of the puzzle for Man Utd to win the Champions League again. But he couldn't hack it in England. He was so vastly inferior to Scholes, who's place in the team he'd taken, that United not only didn't win the Champions League but they also finished outside the top 2 for the first time in over a decade.
Was he a one off? Hell no. Let's start with his old mate from Argentina. Somebody he played with at Parma and Lazio. When Claudio Ranieri signed Veron for Chelsea, he reunited him with Hernan Crespo, one of Serie A's most potent goalscorers of the last decade. It couldn't go wrong. Except that Crespo also couldn't cope with the English game, the odd wonder goal aside. After he was sent back to Serie A on loan, twice, I remember reading that he'd cost Chelsea over £1m per game from his transfer fee and wages. And Chelsea didn't have to wait long to surpass even this. AC Milan are one of Italy's biggest and most traditional clubs and Chelsea signed their second top goalscorer of all time, aged just 29. Andriy Shevchenko was a mega superstar. He was a a Ballon D'Or winner. £30m was a British transfer record once again. And once again, the player found that the Premier League is a very different place to Serie A. 9 goals in 48 games in the Premiership was a shocking return for a player of his reputation, especially given the fact that he was on £120k per week which was practically unheard of at the time.
You might think that these high profile flops were just down to unrealistic expectations, or the players feeling the pressure of their price tags. But there are plenty of other Serie A flops from the last decade. Let's look at Liverpool recently. Fabio Borini was a promising young player from Roma who had just broken into the Italian national side when he joined Liverpool, his impact was minimal last season. Then you have Alberto Aquilani, who is doing well again in Serie A now that he's returned, but funnily enough couldn't produce anything like this kind of form in England. And then there was Christian Poulsen who looked good at Juventus before costing Roy Hodgson his job. Remember Savio who joined West Ham? Or Rolando Bianchi who joined City? They must have cost almost £20m between them because in Italy they looked good. And you have Gaston Ramirez, who has had flashes of brilliance for Southampton but has remained largely inconsistent.
The only two players I can think of coming from Serie A who have really excelled in England recently are Philippe Coutinho and Matija Nastasic. Both look to be extremely talented players. But, both are young players who have also had spells in other countries. Coutinho got to play in Spain and Brazil, both faster paced games based more on attacking football than Italy. The biggest impact from a player who made their name in Italy in recent times is probably from Mario Balotelli, and he made most of his impact off the field. The best goalscoring season he had in the Premiership saw him score 13 goals. After moving back to Serie A, he scored 12 goals in his first 13 games. Now Balotelli isn't alone in going back to Italy and taking the country by storm. Just take a look at some of his team mates. Kevin Prince Boateng, Robinho, Sulley Muntari...at best you could say these guys were inconsistent in England. But, big name players in Italy. And would you look at that? Carlos Tevez has just scored on his debut for Juventus. No doubt he'll be one of, if not the, best player in Serie A this season.
Perhaps it's just that the styles of play in the two leagues are so different. Perhaps it's not the same in other places. It isn't. Gaizka Mendieta's transfer to Lazio was a very long time ago, now the high profile flops are those COMING from Italy to Spain. Take Kaka for example. Remember him? I can hardly remember a match he's played in for Real Madrid. This is a guy who cost a world record transfer fee and was rated as the best footballer on the planet when he was at Milan. How about Zlatan Ibrahimovic? Arguably the best forward of the last decade in Serie A. Nobody doubts he's a phenomenal player, but he never produced his best form at Barcelona and he was chopped after only one season despite them spending a ridiculous sum of money on him AND giving away Eto'o, one of the greatest strikers of his generation, in exchange for him. Barca also recently signed Alexis Sanchez for big money, he's been very underwhelming so far. And of course, you get the same thing going the other way. Diego Milito was ok at Zaragoza but he was one of Inter's best players over the last decade. And Miroslav Klose averaged one goal in four games in the Bundesliga for Bayern over the four years he was there. That's ok, he was in the twilight of his career. Now he's 35, playing for Lazio, and has spent the last two seasons averaging a goal every other game. How can that work? A player at a worse club relative to the rest of the league, in an older body, scoring twice as frequently.
The fact is, Serie A has badly regressed. It's always been played at a slower pace to the Premiership. The difference is that, whereas Serie A once had the edge on this league in terms of the technique and finesse of their players, we now have players like Dimitar Berbatov and Hatem Ben Arfa playing even for mid-table clubs in the Premiership, let alone your Van Persies, Hazards, Matas, Agueros and Silvas. Their game is slow, non-physical, negative and boring. So unless your "tekkers" is absolutely exceptional, you will struggle when trying to play the way we do things over here.
It will be interesting to see how the careers of not only Lamela, but also Edison Cavani, Stevan Jovetic and Pablo Osvaldo develop over the next couple of years now that they've left Italy. They might do extremely well and cement their names as world class players. But I'd be surprised if all of them do. And not just because of Osvaldo's bad attitude. I wonder if anyone can give any real insight (not "if he's good enough for AVB and Baldini then he's good enough for me") as to why they think that Lamela is worth this investment, given the bad recent history of players from Serie A, and the fact that he will be moving to a new country with enormous expectations given the size of the transfer fee and the fact that he will be replacing one of the best players we have ever had at the club. Watching the youtube highlights of him today, the way he runs with the ball at pace using predominantly his left-foot does remind me of Bale, perhaps he's the most like for like player out there. But, given the history of importing players from Serie A, is this kind of investment a good idea?
When I was a kid, there were some outstanding Italian sides. IIRC there were six Champions League finals in a row in the 90s that featured an Italian side. And Serie A was a great place to look to import hugely talented footballers to the Premier League. Think Zola, Bergkamp, Vialli, Di Canio, Henry, Desailly, Carbone. But now? It's awful. I can't remember the last time a player came over from Serie A and took the league by storm like these guys did. Not only that, but Serie A clubs are badly struggling in Europe. Since Mourinho's Inter managed to defend their way to winning the thing in 2010, Italy haven't had a single Champions League semi-finalist, and they haven't had more than one club in the quarter-finals since 2007.
I have watched over the last decade or so as clubs continue to spend phenomenal amounts of money on importing players from Serie A to the Premier League, only to see a player who looked like a world beater in Italy badly struggle with the pace and physicality of our game. The first major Serie A flop signing I can remember in the Premier League (not counting Ramon Vega, Nicola Berti or Paolo Tramezzani) was Juan Sebastian Veron. £28m was the British transfer record at the time and he was a mega superstar coming to the Premier League. We had big name players in the Premier League, but up until his transfer most of the big money international signings seemed to be going to either Italy or Spain, so it was exciting to see one now coming to England. For Lazio, he'd been the driving force in helping them to win Serie A. His silky skills and passing ability were supposed to be the missing piece of the puzzle for Man Utd to win the Champions League again. But he couldn't hack it in England. He was so vastly inferior to Scholes, who's place in the team he'd taken, that United not only didn't win the Champions League but they also finished outside the top 2 for the first time in over a decade.
Was he a one off? Hell no. Let's start with his old mate from Argentina. Somebody he played with at Parma and Lazio. When Claudio Ranieri signed Veron for Chelsea, he reunited him with Hernan Crespo, one of Serie A's most potent goalscorers of the last decade. It couldn't go wrong. Except that Crespo also couldn't cope with the English game, the odd wonder goal aside. After he was sent back to Serie A on loan, twice, I remember reading that he'd cost Chelsea over £1m per game from his transfer fee and wages. And Chelsea didn't have to wait long to surpass even this. AC Milan are one of Italy's biggest and most traditional clubs and Chelsea signed their second top goalscorer of all time, aged just 29. Andriy Shevchenko was a mega superstar. He was a a Ballon D'Or winner. £30m was a British transfer record once again. And once again, the player found that the Premier League is a very different place to Serie A. 9 goals in 48 games in the Premiership was a shocking return for a player of his reputation, especially given the fact that he was on £120k per week which was practically unheard of at the time.
You might think that these high profile flops were just down to unrealistic expectations, or the players feeling the pressure of their price tags. But there are plenty of other Serie A flops from the last decade. Let's look at Liverpool recently. Fabio Borini was a promising young player from Roma who had just broken into the Italian national side when he joined Liverpool, his impact was minimal last season. Then you have Alberto Aquilani, who is doing well again in Serie A now that he's returned, but funnily enough couldn't produce anything like this kind of form in England. And then there was Christian Poulsen who looked good at Juventus before costing Roy Hodgson his job. Remember Savio who joined West Ham? Or Rolando Bianchi who joined City? They must have cost almost £20m between them because in Italy they looked good. And you have Gaston Ramirez, who has had flashes of brilliance for Southampton but has remained largely inconsistent.
The only two players I can think of coming from Serie A who have really excelled in England recently are Philippe Coutinho and Matija Nastasic. Both look to be extremely talented players. But, both are young players who have also had spells in other countries. Coutinho got to play in Spain and Brazil, both faster paced games based more on attacking football than Italy. The biggest impact from a player who made their name in Italy in recent times is probably from Mario Balotelli, and he made most of his impact off the field. The best goalscoring season he had in the Premiership saw him score 13 goals. After moving back to Serie A, he scored 12 goals in his first 13 games. Now Balotelli isn't alone in going back to Italy and taking the country by storm. Just take a look at some of his team mates. Kevin Prince Boateng, Robinho, Sulley Muntari...at best you could say these guys were inconsistent in England. But, big name players in Italy. And would you look at that? Carlos Tevez has just scored on his debut for Juventus. No doubt he'll be one of, if not the, best player in Serie A this season.
Perhaps it's just that the styles of play in the two leagues are so different. Perhaps it's not the same in other places. It isn't. Gaizka Mendieta's transfer to Lazio was a very long time ago, now the high profile flops are those COMING from Italy to Spain. Take Kaka for example. Remember him? I can hardly remember a match he's played in for Real Madrid. This is a guy who cost a world record transfer fee and was rated as the best footballer on the planet when he was at Milan. How about Zlatan Ibrahimovic? Arguably the best forward of the last decade in Serie A. Nobody doubts he's a phenomenal player, but he never produced his best form at Barcelona and he was chopped after only one season despite them spending a ridiculous sum of money on him AND giving away Eto'o, one of the greatest strikers of his generation, in exchange for him. Barca also recently signed Alexis Sanchez for big money, he's been very underwhelming so far. And of course, you get the same thing going the other way. Diego Milito was ok at Zaragoza but he was one of Inter's best players over the last decade. And Miroslav Klose averaged one goal in four games in the Bundesliga for Bayern over the four years he was there. That's ok, he was in the twilight of his career. Now he's 35, playing for Lazio, and has spent the last two seasons averaging a goal every other game. How can that work? A player at a worse club relative to the rest of the league, in an older body, scoring twice as frequently.
The fact is, Serie A has badly regressed. It's always been played at a slower pace to the Premiership. The difference is that, whereas Serie A once had the edge on this league in terms of the technique and finesse of their players, we now have players like Dimitar Berbatov and Hatem Ben Arfa playing even for mid-table clubs in the Premiership, let alone your Van Persies, Hazards, Matas, Agueros and Silvas. Their game is slow, non-physical, negative and boring. So unless your "tekkers" is absolutely exceptional, you will struggle when trying to play the way we do things over here.
It will be interesting to see how the careers of not only Lamela, but also Edison Cavani, Stevan Jovetic and Pablo Osvaldo develop over the next couple of years now that they've left Italy. They might do extremely well and cement their names as world class players. But I'd be surprised if all of them do. And not just because of Osvaldo's bad attitude. I wonder if anyone can give any real insight (not "if he's good enough for AVB and Baldini then he's good enough for me") as to why they think that Lamela is worth this investment, given the bad recent history of players from Serie A, and the fact that he will be moving to a new country with enormous expectations given the size of the transfer fee and the fact that he will be replacing one of the best players we have ever had at the club. Watching the youtube highlights of him today, the way he runs with the ball at pace using predominantly his left-foot does remind me of Bale, perhaps he's the most like for like player out there. But, given the history of importing players from Serie A, is this kind of investment a good idea?
