Italian disaster in 180 European minutes

As if Italian football hadn’t been slapped enough before, the chaos in which the national team finds itself (or was until recently, now better days are hopefully in sight) has been compounded by the obvious problem that the Apennine clubs have in the Champions League.

Only two rounds have passed in the elite league, but 180 minutes of football are enough of a sample to conclude that “Calcio” is seriously lagging behind the rest of Europe.

Inter have reached two Champions League finals in the last four campaigns (losing to Manchester City and Paris Saint-Germain), but are now on a seven-game losing streak in eight games. Last season they were eliminated by Bode Glimt, and two nights ago they conceded four goals at home to Club Brugge in a 4-3 defeat.

“The Nerazzurri” are without a doubt the best Italian team on the European stage in recent years, their defeats are just confirmation that the Champions League is something completely different from Serie A and that the football played in that championship is in some way outdated…

The second round of the Champions League marked a debacle for Italian teams – four teams in the Champions League suffered as many defeats.

And only one match out of all – Roma’s against Real Madrid – could have ended differently. Inter’s defeats against Club Brugge, Como’s defeats against Feyenoord in Rotterdam and Napoli’s away defeat to Villarreal are – as clean as a tear.

After two rounds of the league, the Italian teams have only four points in total. Como won three – with a win over Leipzig at home, and Roma won one against Fenerbahçe in Istanbul.

Before the match with the Belgians, Inter also lost to Real Madrid, and Napoli was defeated by Arsenal at the Diego Maradona Stadium.

So, four points in eight matches or 0,5 per game, as many as the Ukrainians, even though they only have one representative in the elite (Shakhtar), or the Netherlands (PSV and Feyenoord) and Norway (Bode and Viking).

Only the Belgians, Azerbaijanis, Greeks, Turks, Austrians, Czechs and Slovaks won less.

And the look at the table is devastating for the Italians, with only Como with three points at the moment holding a place that leads to the play-offs (12th position). Roma is 25th, Inter and Napoli are in the bottom half along with six other teams that are on zero…

The most points were collected by teams from La Liga and the Premier League – 24 each.

For the Spaniards it looks like this: Barcelona 6, Betis 6, Real Madrid 6, Villarreal 3, Atletico Madrid 3.

Among the English teams, Liverpool, Arsenal and Aston Villa are at their peak, while Manchester United and Manchester City have one win and one loss.

German teams won 16 points – six for Stuttgart, four for Bayern, three each for Borussia and Leipzig, and nine for France (six for Paris Saint-Germain and three for Lens, led by our Andrija Bulatović)…