Quality of Serie A

This is by no means a league vs league debate thread (that's just pointless). This is a thread about how Italian teams are performing at the moment. Why have a thread about this now? Serie A now has more teams in the Champions League than all the other leagues for the first time in ages.

My hypotheses are that...

Serie A has improved in quality over the last year.

Serie A teams have become more financially stable and responsible with their spending.

Serie A teams care more about the Europa league.

Serie A has now recovered from Calciopoli entirely.

Serie A has become a more attractive transfer destination for players than previously.


Discuss. (I'll write some more on this thread later)

My thoughts
Over the last year the quality has improved. I do not believe that Serie A has recovered from calciopoli entirely but they are going in the right direction.
As for transfer destination I have to disagree, Italy is down a champions league spot, making it tougher to come by champions league football so it is not as attractive as England for example. (Aguero to City is my main thought here).

Nice list though

I don't think Aguero went to City because of Englands attractive football or City's awesomeness.The offer was simply too good(money wise)to pass on!

Serie A has the highest number of teams at the last 16

lol now I understand why cyberman suddenly decided to leave

Hypothesis 1: Serie A has improved in quality over the last year.

How can this be proven?

Contenders
Last year, Milan virtually ran away with the title. Sure there were some stumbling blocks and there wasn't always a massive gap between 1st and 2nd, but they were leading for virtually the whole season and had few challengers. In fact, they were leading all the way from the 10th of November to the very end, and only ever lost 4 times the whole season. To put that into perspective, that's two days from now, last year, that Milan took pole position and never relinquished it for the whole season.

Time will tell if Juve are able to beat that streak this season, but the important thing to note is that there are still many teams in with a shot this year. Milan and Udinese are less than a game behind. Lazio are 4 points behind Juve and Napoli and Palermo are only 3 games behind in points. And then there's Inter, currently languishing in 14th place, but they can never be counted out and neither can big-spending Roma or Fiorentina, led by the talented Jovetic. It's still early days.

Depth
Usually some teams are just in Serie A to make up the numbers... Cagliari, Catania, Parma, Chievo, Atalanta, Genoa... nobody expects these teams to even threaten the top teams, yet all of these teams have either 4 or 5 wins to their name from 12/13 games. Some of these wins have even come against title contenders, eg. Catania beat Napoli, Parma beat Udinese, and impressively, all of the teams I have mentioned sit above Inter on the table.

Youth and Dynamism
Critics will say that Serie A may be "tactically boring and slow". I for one, have never agreed that Serie A is boring, however, there are certain times where the pace of the Italian game has been unfortunately embarrassingly exposed in Europe (Milan v Tottenham, Man U; Inter v CSKA, Trabzonspor; Roma v Shakhtar). So personally, the trend towards youth and pace is definitely pleasing to see.

Owners and coaches are learning that continued investment in youth at their clubs is helping their team play a more beautiful, fast-paced game whilst still maintaining it's excellent technical standard. I would like to point out Milan's achievement's in reducing our squad's quota of retirees, however, the real credit should go to Udinese, who's youth development and scouting has been exemplary and led to the creation of a dynamic and creative squad. Palermo, Roma and Napoli have also embraced this philosophy with varying degrees of success in results, but importantly all are playing attractive football.

Juventus haven't exactly reinvigorated their squad with youth this year, although they are a special situation because of their past difficulties and intense pressure on them to get immediate results. They should be praised for recruiting the right type of players to rebuild their squad and are playing eye-catching football nonetheless. Contrast this with Inter, who haven't evolved their game at all and are paying the price for it right now.

So there it is; more contenders, more depth, more youth. Thanks for reading.

@Forza Rossoneri
Very good Hypothesis & a very good read...
I for one must say that Serie A was unjustifiable robbed of 1 CL spot...because Serie A alongside EPl are the only leagues 2 teams from the same league at finals...(correct me if I'm wrong)
The year before Inter won the UCL but they didn't hesitates to rob us of one spot while a German team hasn't won UCL since 2001(Bayern)
This season Serie A is real good...I watched the Lecce vs Lazio match & the teams were just real amazing...
Lecce played well although they lost 3-2
I think Serie A is heading in the right direction & will soon reclaim it's 4th UCL spot!

I agree almost 100 percent with what you have said Forza Rossoneri.

I don't think though that the league will "fully" recover, from the bad image layed upon it until the teams, fully show that they are ready to confront the top teams in europe.

That means to embark on a continuation of improvement.

Milan have to get better
Napoli have to get better
Juventus have to get better
Whole league has to improve

If i have seen anything throughout the years, its that along with the epl, this league shows the biggest sign of group effort, than any other league.

The italians, and overall majority of serie a fans, love to see a strong, world class, well balanced league, something that for the past 5 years has been dwindling down. I think though, that the tide is turning and if done right.. in 3 years you could be in a good spot.

If your whole league is good, it proves that you as teams are good. Just keep working on it, and do your own thing.

Dont try what other leagues, do nor pay attention at irrelevant criticism, people might also point at "boring matches" for lack of viewer input, but with success, things like that turn irrelevant.

la liga is carried by real madrid and barcelona, and epl is too strong even now to look at as losers.

Stay humble ( dont obsess on cl stats)and keep working on it serie a...

If only CL performance is count, Serie A has highest co-efficient. Tonight I watch Novara-Napoli. Napoli, who play better than Manchester City in L was stop by exceelent Novara counter attack and defense. Novara is new Serie A club, but very strong and can be successful against strongest teams in Serie A.

I also watch Bologna unfortunate draw an play better than Milan today. Milan, who draw Barca and only lose by bad penalty and own goal against Barca.