From Serie A’s Golden Age to potential last-16 lockout: Inter’s shock exit shows decline of Italian football | OneFootball

Italian football in the 80s and 90s was the pinnacle of club football. The latter decade in particular was a period in which Serie A set the standard.

Events this week have underlined the decline of a proud football nation on the international stage.Inter Milan's exit to Bodo/Glimt in the play-off round is already one of the Champions League's greatest shocks.

Last season's finalists were unceremoniously dumped out by the tournament debutants, a Norwegian town with a total population just over half of San Siro's capacity.

After home and away wins against Inter, Bodo's giant-killing is the second biggest aggregate win by a team from outside Europe's top five leagues against Italian opposition in theChampions League.

Inter's exit follows Napoli's nightmare, as the Scudetto holders failed to progress out of the league phase. In an expanded format that allows 24 teams to progress, it's an astonishing underachievement.

More are due to follow. Tonight,Juventus and Atalanta face huge tasks to salvage their European seasons. The former face Galatasaray with a three-goal deficit to turn around in Turin, while Atalanta are at Dortmund, trailing 2-0 on aggregate.

Barring a remarkable recovery, we are set for a Champions League last 16 without Italian representation for the first time. Not since 1987-88, when first-time entrants Napoli lost to Real Madrid in the first round of the European Cup, has no Serie A team made the last 16.

It's a stark comparison to those nineties glory years. In the decade between the 1989-90 season and the 1998-99 campaign, Italian teams featured in 25 major European finals, securing 13 trophies. Four times during that period, the UEFA Cup was contested as an all-Italian final.

The dominance extended off the pitch. Italy had world-leading infrastructure after renovations and fresh builds for Italia '90, while Italian teams broke the world transfer record nine times between 1984 and 2000. Across that same period, only two La Liga deals and one Premier League transfer interrupted that run.

It was a time when the top talents called Serie A home. From 1982 to 1998, 13 of the 17 Ballon d'Or winners (76%) belonged to Italian clubs. It truly was a constellation of talent.

The current decline extends far beyond this season's Champions League failure. It's been almost 16 years since an Italian side last won the Champions League, while there's been only one Italian winner of the UEFA Cup/Europa League this century.

At international level, four-time world champions Italy are in danger of missing a third consecutive World Cup. Before missing out in 2018, it had been 60 years since their previous qualification failure.

The Azzurri squad was once packed with premium players, but how many of the current crop can be considered world-class? Gianluigi Donnarumma, for sure, but beyond the giant goalkeeper, there is a lack of elite talent.

Balance, of course, is required. Across the last five seasons, only the Premier League has outperformed Italian sides in European competition. Inter Milan (2), Roma (2), Fiorentina (2), and Atalanta have all been to UEFA finals. Three of those final appearances, however, came in the recently-formed third-tier Conference League.

Similarly, the lack of a genuine dominant force has made Serie A the most competitive of Europe's top five leagues. The Scudettohas not been won consecutively since 2020, with four different winners in the last six seasons. It's an unpredictability that La Liga, Ligue 1, the Bundesliga, and the Premier League would all benefit from.

But, for a nation once regarded as football's finest destination, introspection is required. For the football romantics, and the Azzurri's long-term future, Serie A standards can not afford to slip further.