EPILOGUE PART 1: The domesic leagues
Chapter 1: SERIE A
1970s
1970: cagliari (2)
1971: cagliari (3)
1972: cagliari (4)
1973: lazio (4)
1974: lazio (5)
1975: Napoli (3)
1976: torino (7)
1977: torino (8)
1978: vicenza (2)
1979: perugia (1) (title revoked, given to inter (10) )
1980: Inter (11)
The early parts of the decade in italy was dominated by cagliari, on the back of goalscoring duo Luigi Riva and roberto boninsegna, the two exchanging the top scorer titles between each other during the grande cagliari years. The streak was ended after lazio, carried by griorgio chinaglia, its rock solid midfield and its foreigners gregorz lato and rome-born argentine top scorer delio onnis would win back to back titles in 1973 and 1974.
The 1974-1975 season was considered one of the best seasons in serie A history, with a tight championship battle between 4 clubs and international talents on almost every team. Players such as paul breitner, wlodimierz lubanski, elias figueroa, wim jansen, ruud krol, rob rensenbrink, leopoldo luque, tostao, caju, edu, Gregorz lato, Delio onnis, teofilo cubillas, oleg blohkin and carlos alberto were among the foreign stars that plied their trade in italy, taking advantage of the implementation of free agency, following the example set by the NBA, Major league baseball and The NHL. Onnis, in particular, would light up the scoresheets across his entire career, eventually becoming the top goalscorer in serie A History.
Of all those stars, it would be an italian goalkeeper who would steal the show, as Dino zoff helped carry napoli to their first scudetto in 30 years before joining juventus the following season.
Despite the signing of zoff and a squad boasting the lokes of roberto bettega, Wim Jansen, Roger magnusson and an impenetrable wall composed of claudio gentile, gaetano scirea and sergio brio, juventus would lose the 1976 and 1977 scudetto to their fierce crosstown rivals torino FC, which boasted a very good squad as well, featuring francesco graziani and rob resenbrink among others. They would strike back by winning the UEFA Cup in 1977, the first trophy under new manager giovanni trappatoni.
One italian striker would become a binafide superstar in 1978: paolo rossi. In two loan spells, one at vicenza and another at perugia, the italian would carry both of those teams to an improbable scudetto.
The 1979-1980 season would see inter milan win their first title since the helenio herrera era thansk to an amazing oerformance by france's Crown jewel: michel platini, acquired from nancy-lorraine in 1977. Unfortunately, that season would be overshadowed by a huge match-fixing scandal involving the leqding clubs in italy, called the "totonero".
Paolo rossi and bruno giordano were among the players found to have fixed and gambled on games during the last 2 years. After the huge 1966 world cup scandal, measures to prevent match-fixing became much more strict, and the likes of juventus, AC Milan, napoli, Perugia and lazio were forcefully relegated at the end of the season, with perugia having their 1979 title revoked and given to inter, while giordano and paolo rossi being banned for 3 years, with rossi successfuly appealing to have his ban be lifted for the 1982 world cup. Of note was lazio star delio onnis who, after being cleared of charges and succesfully ending his contract with lazio after their relegation, would make an extremely controversial free transfer to AS Roma, a move so controversial that, during their 1980 coppa italia fixture, lazio fans threw a pig's head at onnis during a corner kick.
1980s
1981: Roma (2)
1982: fiorentina (4)
1983: roma (3)
1984: roma (4)
1985: hellas verona (2)
1986: juventus (12)
1987: napoli (4)
1988: milan (10)
1989: inter (12)
1990: napoli (5)
That contriversial move paid off big time for onnis and Roma, who had their golden years during the early 80s. Former AC Milan star niels liedholm, who got the job in the mid-70s, spent the last part of the decade building his squad, filling it with homegrown talent such as augustino di bartolomei, Carlo ancelotti, roberto pruzzo and captain Bruno Conti as well as brazilian internationals Paulo Falcao and Toninho Cerezo. The addition of onnis would push the Giallorossi over the top, dominating a poor Serie A league in 1980-1981 and almost doing a repeat in 1981-1982, but they and a recently promoted juve would lose the title on the last day of the season, where Liam Brady was Refused a penalty against catanzaro and got carded for diving, allowing fiorentina, led by giovanni galli, daniel passarella, pietro vierchowod, Eraldo Pecci, Daniel bertoni, Giancarlo antonioni, daniele massaro, francesco graziani and world cup MVP Socrates to win their first scudetto in 20 years.
Despite the world recprd signing of inter's platini to juventus, Roma would hold strong and win the 82-83 title before achieving the greatest feat in club history: the world's Second ever treble, winning Serie A on the back of 36-year old onnis's league-leading 33 goals, the coppa italia and, finally, beating liverpool at home in extra time to win the Champions cup.
While roma would go Back to back in europe agaisnt leeds united in 1984-1985, Italian football would once again show its star power, with the likes of michel platini, zbigniew boniek, Liam brady, trevor francis, Graeme Souness, Zico, Edinho, Eder, Socrates, daniel bertoni, alemao, lakhdar belloumi, Mark Hateley, Didier Six and karl-heinz rummenigge being joined by the best player in the world: diego maradona, who signed with napoli for a world record $6 million from barcelona.
Yet, despite all those stars being spread out across the league, it was hellas verona who would claim tge scudetto that year in perhaps the biggest upset in italian football history. Finally, after winning three coppa italias, one UEFA Cup and one cup winners cup, Trappatoni and platini's juventus finally wins the scudetto in 1986. However, maradona would make his presence know the following season. Boosted by the singings of alemao in 1984, bruno giordano in 1985 and Gamba Osaka Star Careca in 1986, Napoli would win their 4th scudetto in 1987, the argentine making up for a disappointing early exit in the 1986 world cup with a brilliant performance in the league, forming the ma-gi-ca trio with careca and giordano.
Meanwhile, frustrated with his favorite club suffering not one, but two relehations in the early parts of the decade, Media Mogul Silvio Berlusconi Buys AC Milan and proceeds to spend lavishly on the 1986 world cup winning dutch trio of ajax's Marco van basten and frank rijkaard and Arsenal's UEFA Cup winning MVP Ruud Gullit. Combined with The revolutionary coaching of unknown manager Arrigo Sacchi and homegrown talent such as franco barsei, fillipo galli, paolo maldini, mauro tassotti, alessandro Costacurta, alberigo evani, Demetrio albertini, Roberto donadoni, pietro verdis and the signings of Roma's carlo ancelotti and Cesena's Sebastiano Rossi, AC Milan would conquer everything in its path, winning serie A in 1988 and winning back to back european cups, which included a memorable thrashing of real madrid (5-0) and a dramatic shootout against ian rush and michael laudrup's liverpool in the 1989 final (5-4 Milan).
However, they failed to retain the scudetto in 1989, with their fierce rivals inter, led by former juve coach Giovanni Trappatoni and the likes of keeper walter Zenga, lothar matthaus, Giuseppe bergomi, nicola berti, Lakhdar belloumi, Andreas brehme and aldo serena, dominating the season, while napoli would come back in 1990 with a new magica trio, this time, the gi is youngster Gianfranco zola, who many sees as napoli's future franchise player along with midfielders fernando de napoli and massimo crippa as well as defender ciro ferrara. Napoli would also win their first european trophy: the UEFA cup in 1989.
1990s
1991: sampdoria (5)
1992: milan (11)
1993: milan (12)
1994: sampdoria (6)
1995: torino (9)
1996 : fiorentina (5)
1997: parma (1)
1998: Udinese (3)
1999: fiorentina (6)
2000: lazio (6)
The 90s is seen by many as the greatest decad in football history. At the forefront of this decade was italian football, who was unanimously considered the best league in the world at that time. Italian clubs dominated europe, with three winning the champions cup and the UEFA Cup being won by italian teams every year except two: bordeaux in 1996 and schalke in 1997.
The decade began with sampdoria, a club born out of the merger between sampierdarenese and andrea doria and dominating the coppa italia in the 80s, would finally win their first league title since the early 20th century rhanks to the coaching if fiorentina's 1990 UEFA Cup winning swede sven-goran eriksson and the efforts of pietro vierchowod, gianluca pagliuca, michele serena, moreno mannini, Toninho cerezo, Fausto pari, Atillo lombardo and the duo of roberto mancini and gianluca vialli. The genoa club would then add 1991 champions cup winners Vladimir Jugovic and Sinisa Mihajlovic as well as England's 1990 world cup winner David platt, whose partnership with german rudi voller propulsed aston villa to the English league title in 1990. Platt's dominating performance in midfield and link-up play with Vialli and mancini was crucial in the 1991 1992 champions cup campaign, which was won agaisnt barcelona, where romald koeman equalised at the last minute with a thunderous free kick to force extra time, where sinisa mihajlovic would win the ruropean cup for doria with a free kick of his own.
Not one to sit on the sideline, AC Milan would strike back, winning the 92 and 93 scudetto in dominatung fashion, including going the 91-92 campaign undefeated. They would lose the champions Cup final against olympique de marseille in 1993. Meanwhile, a spirited torino FC side won the 1992 UEFA Cup, thanks to a great performance from enzo francescoli and teeenager christian vieri, whose partnership with gianluigi lentini is seen by many as italy's future, while Czech coach Zdenek Zeman would overachieve massively, bringing small club foggia to europe with a 6th place finish in 91-92 before winning an improbable UEFA Cup the following year, beating the likes of PSG, Atletico madrid and Juventus to win it all.
The 93-94 season was a close affair between juventus, torino, milan, sampdoria and rising stars parma, with the genoa club stealing the title from milan at the last day. Mancini, vialli, platt and mihajlovic were joined by disgruntled milan star ruud Gullit, who joined the club thanks to having italian citizenship, meaning he didn't count as a foreign player. They would also complete a league-cup double, while milan would get their 4th champions cup as a consolation prize, avenging their loss against marseille in the semi-finals, then thrash a heavily-favoured barcelona team 4-0 in the final. Meanwhile, cagliari became the surprise winners of the UEFA Cup on the back of an impressive performance by their foreign quatuor of jose herrera, luis oliveira, julio dely valdes and Masahiro Chono.
The 94-95 season would end up in a three-way struggle between parmq, juventus and torino. The bulls, led by coach claudio ranieri, gianluigi lentini in his prime, The versatile gianluca pessotto, the center back pairing of Roberto mussi and giulio falcone, goalkeeper luca marchegianni, new signings mauro milanese, jocelyn angloma and abedi ayew as well as a breakout 24-goal season by christian vieri, would win their 9th scudetto over their piedmont rivals and the gialloblu. Parma, however, would get the UEFA Cup as a consolation prize, beating napoli 2-1 in the final.
The Bosman ruling shook the football world to its core, with all foreign players now free to play wherever they wanted. Sensing that the richest clubs would just snap up all the best players, UEFA took a page out of american sports and implement a salary cap on the top 5 European leagues, so as to keep cometitive balance and prevent clubs from going bankrupt, which, following the close call with napoli before the consortium led by diego maradona and Aurelio de Laurentiis bought the club, would be very welcoming.
This forced clubs like juve, milan and inter to rebuild almost overnight, with the newfound talent spread benefitting the smaller clubs, and Fiorentina, on the back of francesco toldo's goalkeeping, angelo di livio's midfield generalship and the Swashbuckling BBC Trio composed of Manuel Rui Costa, Gabriel Batistuta and the great Roberto Baggio, would win the 1995-1996 scudetto convincingly by 12 points over a ressurgent milan carried by Ballon d'or winner george weah and complete the double by winning the coppa italia.
The 1996-1997 season would see a massive rebuild by juventus. Gone was german jupp heynckes, who joined real madrid, and in comes inexperienced coach carlo ancelotti, a big gamble by umberto agnelli. The team would get rid of many players and bring new ones, such as parma's filippo inzaghi, nicola amoruso, Ajax's champions cup winning midfielder edgar davids on a free transfer, atalanta's mark liuliano, empoli's alessandro birindelli and bordeaux's zinedine zidane.
The gamble almost payed off, as juve and parma went head-to-head in the title race, with parma peeping juve out on the last day by only two points. Claudio ranieri would win his second scudettonafter the one won with torino, and his team was chock full of stars such as antonio bennarivo, fernando couto, roberto sensini, Stefano fiore, luis figo, enrico chiesa, hernan cresponand young gianluigi buffon. The club would make it to the champions league final, where they would lose 1-0 to jupp heynckes's real madrid, the merengues fianlly breaking the spanish curse.
The 1997-1998 Serie A season is seen by many football fans as the singlr greatest season in the history of football, due to the sheer quality of play and almost every squad being full of stars. During that season, everybody could beat anybody, and Udinese , on the back of alberto zaccheroni's offensive 3-5-2 formation and the record-breaking season of german oliver bierhoff, would stun juve and the Inter side led by superstar ronaldo il phenomeno and christian vieri by taking advantage of both clubs's slip ups and the infamous No penalty game of april 26th to win the scudetto on the penultimate day thanks to alessandro calori scoring at the 94th minute. Meanwhile, napoli would win the cup winners cup, their second ever european trophy, while inter would win the UEFA Cup.
Just to show the sheer quality of the league that season, here are some of the lineups:
Juventus
Peruzzi
Birindelli iuliano montero fortunato
Tacchinardi
Conte davids
Zidane
Del piero inzaghi
Parma
Buffon
Bennarivo sensini couto sartor
Figo Crippa D. Baggio fiore
Crespo chiesa
Lazio
Roma
Negro Nesta Favalli Pancaro
Fuser Di matteo almeyda nedved
Di vaio signori
AS Roma
Cudicini
Zago aldair carboni
Cafu Di biaggio tomassi candela
Totti
Delvecchio/sergio balbo
Inter
Lehmann
Galante bergomi fresi
Zanetti simeone cauet pistone
Djorkaeff
Ronaldo vieri
Torino
Marchegianni
Angloma falcone kuffour milanese
Cois venturin
Pessotto juninho lentini
Lopez
Fiorentina
Toldo
Repka malusci padalino
Serena zanetti di livio schwarz
Rui costa
Baggio batistuta
AC Milan
Rossi
Panucci escobar desailly maldini
Boban ambrosini albertini leonardo
Weah Simone
Napoli
Taglialatella
Ferrara cannavaro ayala tarantino
Stanic pecchia boghossian jankulovski
Zola fonseca/bellucci
Udinese
Turci
Bertotto calori biari
Helveg giannicheda walem jorgensen
Locatelli
Poggi bierhoff
Sampdoria
Pagliuca
Mannini mihajlovic castellini baleri
Karembeu
Seedorf jugovic
Veron
Montella mancini
Bologna
Antognoli
Carnasciali paganini paramatti torrisi
Fontolan cristallini marocchi kolyvanov
Cruz andersson
SSC Bari
Mancini
Zambrotta sala de rosa garzya
Doll de ascentis ingesson marcolini
Ventola/Masinga kanu (on loan from inter)
Atalanta
Ferron
Mirkovic carrera herrera
Foglio carbone gallo sotil
Morfeo
Ganz caniggia/lucarelli
Perugia
Nista
Ze maria Vierchowod Materazzi Grossi
Tedesco bernardini Gattuso Rapajic
Oliveira Ravanelli
The 98-99 season would see fiorentina dominate to win their 6th scudetto, with brazilian backup striker edmundo Scoring 15 goals and baggio carrying the load offensively following gabriel batistuta's injury. Of note is the great season by perugia. With vujedin boskov coaching, gennaro gattuso leading the midfield, marco materazzi and pietro vierchowod holding the defense and the duo of hometown hero fabrizio ravanelli and japanese sensation hidetoshi nakata, the club would end in a surprising 6th place finish and into europe, with gattuso earning a move to AC Milan following his great performances.
The 99-00 serie A season would be an intense 4-way battoe between roma, lazio, juve and Napoli where,in a photo-finish, lazio would draw against bologa and juve and napoli would both lose their last day fixtures to give lazio the title by only one point!
Napoli would get a consolation prize, though, winning the UEFA Cup against arsenal on penalties.
2000s
2001: Roma (5)
2002: inter (13)
2003: chievo verona (1)
2004: milan (13)
2005: Inter (14) (Juventus won, but title revoked due to Calciopoli scandal)
2006: Roma (6) (Juventus won, but title revoked due to calciopoli)
2007: roma (7)
2008: roma (8)
2009: Genoa (7)
2010: roma (9)
AS Roma, after spending most of the 80s and 90s rebuilding, woupd finally win their 5th scudetto. With the core of walter samuel, Fabio capello loyalist christian panucci, midfielders emerson and Luigi Di Biaggio, vincent candela, cafu, vicenzo montella, marco delvecchio and francesco totti, helped by the signing of gabriel batistuta, Roma would win the scudetto eith a 3-1 victory over parma, a game famous for the crowd at stadio olimpico flooding the pitch before the game was over. Also of Not is fiorentina winning the coppa italia, their last trophy before decalrin bankruptcy and being forced to restart in serie C, as well as perugia and brescia finishing in a very good 4th and 6th place. The former , still containing the likes of materazzi, ze maria, Tedesco, dejan stefanovic and Nakata, used the money gained from UEFA Cup qualification and The Record Sale of gennaro gattuso to bolster their squad with Hidden gems like enzo maresca, Favio liverani, Brazilian Goalkeeper Dida, Fabio Grosso and davide di michele, while the latter benefitted from the surprise free agent signing of roberto baggio and pep guardiola as well as homegrown talents luca toni, Daniele Bonera and Andrea Pirlo.
The following season, Ronaldo's inter would finally win the scudetto after a long, grueling season on the last day, winning against juve, napoli collapsing against lazio and and roma drawing with surprise contenders hellas verona, who had a promising team containing the likes of martin laursen, Mattia cassani, Mauro camoranesi, adrian mutu and alberto gilardino.
Another verona miracle happened in 2002-2003. This time, it was chievo verona who would withstand the assault from lazio, juve, parma and udinese to win the scudetto, with a core of youngsters such as christiano lucarelli, andrea barzagli, nicola legrotaglie, Sergio pelissier, simone perotta, matteo Brighi and bernardo corradi and veterans like eugenio corrini and oliver bierhoff coming off the
bench.
AC Milan would strike back, though, with silvio berlusconi and Carlo ancelotti assembling a super team using all of their remaining cap space: Christian abbiati, Alessandro nesta, paolo maldini, Gianluca zambrotta, andrea pirlo, gennaro gattuso, clarence seedorf, Kaka, andrei Shevchenko and fillipo inzaghi are among the stars that composed the team, with rui costa, jon dahl thomasson, kakha kaladze and serginho all making the bench and taking pay cuts to keep the team under the cap. Thanks to maldini and Abbiati taking a pay cut the following season, they had enough cap space to sign Alberto Gilardino to complete their lineup, where they would dominate the 2004-2005 champions cup, winning the final in a tense affair against arjen robben's PSV Eindhoven before losing to eventual wnners barcelona in the 2006 semi-finals.
Unfortunately, Milan would not have the chance to go for another scudetto, as they, along with 2004-2005 and 2005 2006 champions juventus, lazio, fiorentina and reggina, Would be forcefully relegated after, you guessed it, another Match fixing scandal, known as Calciopoli, with juve's titles revoked, being given to roberto mancini's inter and luciano Spaletti's roma respectively. They never learn, don't they?
This would mark the beginning of the roman empire, where roma would pretty much win everything there is to win in europe. With the core of Gianluigi buffon, Walter samuel, Phillipe mexes, alberto aquilaini, christian chivu, Daniele de rossi, antonio cassano and francesco totti, accompanied by a supporting cast consisting of simone perotta, matteo brighi and mirko vucinic, Roma would win 3 scudetto in the next 4 years, 4 coppa italias and the champions cup in 2009, defeating Mamchester United. The one title they didn't win was in 2008-2009, and what a story that season was!
It all began when jose mourinho left west ham united right after losing the champions cup final agaisnt sven-goran eriksson's manchester united. After failing his audition for the barcelona job and spending a few months on the unemployment line and nobody giving him a call, the special had enough and accept the first offer that came his way: Genoa CFC, a club that hasn't won anything since the early 20th century. Back to his overachieving roots from his days when he won the portuguese title with boavista and the champions cup with FC Porto, Mourinho immediately worked his magic again, signing marco amelia from livorno, Thiago motta , Giuseppe Biava and javier saviola on Free Transfers and, finally, his biggest signings: Deco from Barcelona for 8 million and The returning Diego Milito for 13 Million from relegated Zaragossa. Combined with the few Good pieces that genoa already had, such as captain Marco rossi, matteo ferrari, bosko jankovic, omar milanetto and raffaele padalino along with Young prospects sokratis, Domenico Criscito, giandomenico mesto and salvatore bocchetti, mourinho has a decent team that could surprise people.
However, mourinho is the special one, and he would perform another miracle, taking advantage of slip ups by inter, roma and palermo and carrying his army of misfits to an improbable scudetto, their first since 1928!! This miracke earned mourinho all sorts of manager of the year awards, and he was back to being the best coach in the world.
But he wasn't done...far from it! The next season, he would boost his squad depth by bringing in Fiorentina's emiliano moretti for 3 million, Alberto zapater of zaragossa for 4.5 million, rodrigo palacio for 5 million and Lucio from bayern munich for 7 million. Genoa started the season strong, but eventually fizzeld out and conceded the title to Roma.
In the champions cup, however, Genoa Defied all expectations, mourinho delivering coaching masterclasses and the january free agent signing of disgruntled lazio forward goran pandev sent the club to the final 4, where they face pep guardiola's barcelona. Mourinho would attempt a bold move, playing Domenico criscito on the left wing with moretti at left back so as to contain lionel messi. The move payed off big time, with genoa winning the leg 3-1 in a stunning upset as they go to the Finals, where they faced didier drogba's olympique de marseille.
In a tense, defensive game, Diego milito proved to be the difference maker, scoring the only 2 goals of the match, including an ankle breaker on daniel van buyten, as Mourinho and genoa has done the impossible: They are Champions of europe!
This incredible coaching job earned Mourinho the job at real madrid, while genoa would never reach those same heights ever again.
2011: Palermo (1)
2012: udinese (4)
2013: juventus (13)
2014: juventus (14)
2015: juventus (15)
2016: napoli (6)
2017: roma (10)
2018: napoli (7)
2019: juventus (16)
2020: atalanta (1)
In the modern era of Serie A, apart from Gianpiero gasperini's palermo winning their only scudetto and udinese winning their 4th, it is all juventus, the turin club rebuilding and modernizing itself to become the best club in the country, reaching and losing the champions cup final to atletico madrid in 2015 and to karim benzema's lyon in 2017. Their only challengers have been maurizio sarri's napoli and Eusebio di francesco's roma, with atalanta, led by gasperini, stealing the scudetto by beating juve on the third-to-last day of the season in a huge 4-horse race against juve, inter and lazio.
