Three European finalists, but not a single champion. A brilliant season for Italian club football ended in the most agonising way possible, with Roma, Fiorentina and Internazionale each carving out opportunities to win their respective competitions but none able to land a killer blow. Feelings of pride in performance crashed up against the overwhelming emptiness of knowing that, for many players and coaches, such opportunities come but once in a career.
Does their collective failure paint a bleak picture for Serie A? Don’t be ridiculous. From 2014 to 2016 there were three consecutive years when Italy qualified only two teams to the Champions League group stage – Napoli, Lazio and Roma suffering defeats in the playoff round at a time when the fourth spot had been lost to a dwindling Uefa coefficient. Contrast that with three teams in the quarter-finals this time around.
“Calcio is back,” as Fabio Capello proclaimed in an advert for the league this spring. Serie A may never return to its heyday of the late 20th century, and all Europe must reckon with the overwhelming financial supremacy of the Premier League, but this will be remembered in Italy as a year when its best clubs reasserted themselves on the international stage.
Napoli set a tone even without reaching a final, their 4-1 demolition of Liverpool in September serving notice of what Luciano Spalletti was cooking up in Castel Volturno. They could have scored six before half-time but made up for it by putting that number past Ajax in Amsterdam instead.
It took an Italian team, Milan, to knock them out of the Champions League, as well as an untimely absence for Victor Osimhen. Napoli made do with winning their first Serie A title in 33 years.
Few had even considered them as contenders last summer. Napoli were a team in transition following the summer departures of the captain, Lorenzo Insigne, vice-captain, Kalidou Koulibaly, all-time leading goalscorer, Dries Mertens, and midfielder Fabián Ruiz. Sections of the fanbase protested against Spalletti and the owner, Aurelio De Laurentiis.
Yet Napoli effectively sewed up the Scudetto by late February. They dropped four points out of a possible 45 before the winter World Cup and although they lost their first game back after it ended, against Inter, followed that up with another eight straight wins.
Napoli were merciless and mesmerising. The rechristening of Khvicha Kvaratskhelia as “Kvaradona” was something silly at first: an affectation to help a new signing feel welcome and save supporters stumbling through his surname. But somewhere among the slaloming runs and backheel assists fans started to believe this really could be Diego Maradona’s second coming.
Not that this was a one-man show. Osimhen avoided the catastrophic injuries of the previous two seasons and finished as Serie A’s top scorer. Even when he did miss games, Giacomo Raspadori and Giovanni Simeone picked up the slack. Stanislav Lobotka, Piotr Zielinski and André-Frank Zambo Anguissa complemented one another beautifully in midfield. Kim Min-jae made sure no one missed Koulibaly at centre-back.
Was this a one-off or the start of an era? Spalletti has already departed and several of those players will be subject to enquiries from Europe’s richest clubs. The sporting director who did much to assemble this group, Cristiano Giuntoli, is wanted by Juventus. De Laurentiis, though, has always been a shrewd negotiator, and has insisted that whatever happens the team will be “in good hands”.
They can expect their competition to be stiffer. Napoli’s form did finally dip in the spring but it never mattered because no one else was close to keeping up. Inter, despite brilliant performances in every cup competition – lifting the Coppa Italia and Supercoppa as well as pushing Manchester City to the brink in the Champions League final – lost 12 Serie A matches. Milan, the defending champions, would have missed the top four altogether without Juventus’s 10-point deduction.
The chaotic process of sporting justice was a major blemish on an engaging Serie A season. The Bianconeri were originally absolved of wrongdoing, together with several other clubs, following an investigation into the misuse of plusvalenze (capital gains) in April, but a separate inquiry by public prosecutors in Turin turned up fresh evidence that led the Football Federation to reopen the case against them and eventually hand down a 15-point penalty in January.
That number seemed to come from nowhere, after the prosecutor leading the case against them had asked for nine. The judgment was appealed to the Italian Olympic Committee, who suspended it and sent the case back to the federation’s appeals court. Only on 22 May did that body settle on a revised 10-point deduction.
Putting aside the merits of the case, these back-and-forth rulings were a nightmare not only for Juventus but every club competing against them in the standings. José Mourinho called it a “joke” to not know where his Roma side stood two games from the end.
The Giallorossi eventually finished sixth, as well as losing the Europa League final on penalties. Their neighbours Lazio made a choice to prioritise Serie A over continental glory and were vindicated as they climbed all the way to second. It was their highest finish since winning the league 23 years ago.
The achievement only looks more impressive when you consider that Ciro Immobile scored only 12 goals, his lowest tally since joining the club in 2016 and only his second time finishing with fewer than 20. Maurizio Sarri leaned on others: Sergej Milinkovic-Savic, Felipe Anderson and Mattia Zaccagni. The first of those may not return, having so far declined to extend a contract that expires in 2024.
There will be time for transfer talk in the months ahead. This is the moment to remember a marathon season in which Fiorentina, on their way to Coppa Italia and Europa Conference League finals, played a club record 60 games. Their ambitious, front-footed football was another highlight of a campaign that featured so many.
This was the season when Monza arrived in Serie A for the first time, claiming a series of high-profile scalps – including wins home and away against Juventus – following the promotion of Raffaele Palladino from youth team coach to first-team manager in September. A season that ended with Verona besting Spezia in the league’s first relegation playoff for 18 years.
It was a year of great loss, as well. Gianluca Vialli passed away in January, just a few weeks after Sinisa Mihajlovic. Silvio Berlusconi died on Monday, a man with a more complicated legacy, but one whose impact on football as owner of Milan and more recently Monza cannot be denied.
“Laugh often, help others,” offered Vialli as his advice for living a happy life. In that spirit, let us begin the annual Bandini awards.
Goal of the season
8) Cristiano Biraghi was helped by the inattention of everyone around him, but scoring from your own half pretty much guarantees you a place on this list.
7) Teun Koopmeiners did it from the edge of the technical area instead.
6) Theo Hernández’s annual coast-to-coast contribution. This year’s victims: Lazio.
5) In a Roma team who often made sticking the ball in the net look like hard work, Paulo Dybala was the one player who made it look easy.
4) Sampdoria scored 24 goals all season in Serie A. At least this, from, Abdelhamid Sabiri, was a memorable one.
3) Only Lorenzo Colombo knows how he gets this much power on his shot from a standing start.
2) There was one Atalanta player between Kvaratskhelia and the goal when he received a pass from Osimhen. By the time he buried the ball past Juan Musso he was surrounded by seven opponents: and all were powerless to stop him.
1) The roles were reversed against Roma in January, Kvaratskhelia sending in the cross and Osimhen taking two touches without ever letting the ball hit the floor before roofing a volley past Rui Patrício.
Best goal scored by accident
Antonio Candreva was honest enough to admit his goal against Inter in April was really a mis-hit cross. Still, what a mis-hit cross.
Best first touch
Stephan El Shaarawy casually lifting the ball over the Verona goalkeeper Lorenzo Montipò before scoring into an empty net was just very satisfying indeed.
Mandatory Bandini Awards overhead kick section
We were a little short on these this season, so thank you to Mattia Destro for making sure we did not go without.
Biggest party pooper
Napoli successfully requested for their home game against Salernitana to be pushed back at two days’ notice so that they would have the opportunity to win the league in front of their supporters – as long as Inter could get a result first against Lazio. The Nerazzurri did their part, winning 3-1 to set the stage for the party to end all parties in Naples.
But Salernitana’s Boulaye Dia had other ideas, his 84th-minute equaliser at the Stadio Diego Armando Maradona forcing Napoli to delay the festivities a little while longer. That his goal arrived after nutmegging Osimhen and beating Kvaratskhelia only enhanced its power as a reminder never to take any opponent – much less a local rival – for granted.
Player of the season
A tricky category this year. If we were to use the same terms as Serie A and make this the “Most Valuable Player” award, strong cases could be made for either Dybala or Rafael Leão, two individuals whose presence arguably made the biggest difference to their teams’ attacking potential.
Personally, though, I struggle to look past the two best performers on a Napoli team that finished 16 points clear oftheir closest competition. Kvaratskhelia won the official award, and I could certainly get behind that, Serie A’s assist leader chipping in 12 strikes of his own and dazzling us repeatedly with his vision and dribbling. Yet the Georgian’s form did dip towards the end of the season, with no goal contributions from April onwards.
Had opponents started to figure him out, or was this just fatigue? That’s a question for next season. But Osimhen kept up his high standards to the end, finishing as capocannoniere on 26 goals. His impossible blend of physicality, body control and jaw-droppingly good finishing – with both feet, as well as his head – somehow still might not have earned the international recognition he deserves.
Team of the season (3-4-3)
Ivan Provedel (Lazio); Kim Min-jae (Napoli), Francesco Acerbi (Inter), Chris Smalling (Roma); Giovanni Di Lorenzo (Napoli), Sergej Milinkovic-Savic (Lazio), Stanislav Lobotka (Napoli), Federico Dimarco (Inter); Mattia Zaccagni (Lazio), Victor Osimhen (Napoli), Khvicha Kvaratskhelia (Napoli)
(I have not been consistent with my approach down the years, but this is an attempt to make an actual team that might work, which is why I could not find a spot for Leão, who plays on the same wing as Kvara.)
Manager of the season
This is another category with lots of strong candidates. Sarri’s success at Lazio should not be underestimated, and Palladino’s immediate impact at Monza has marked him out as one to watch. Vincenzo Italiano has probably put together the best two-year stretch of any Serie A manager, inheriting a Fiorentina side who had battled against relegation and taking them to consecutive top-half finishes and this term to two cup finals.
But how can I look past Spalletti in the year that he finally earned the Serie A title that he so richly deserved? He had already left a lasting mark on European football, his deployment of Francesco Totti as a false nine in Roma’s 4-6-0 of the late noughties inspiring a revival for that role, yet his only league triumphs had come with Zenit St Petersburg in Russia.
At last, in the season that he turned 64 years old, Spalletti found the formula to win a Scudetto. To do it in Naples, a city where many believed it simply could not happen without Maradona, makes it more special still.
Game of the season
Once again, so many to choose from. Napoli’s 5-1 mauling of Juventus in January was a dazzling reassertion of their authority after the loss to Inter, though the 1-0 victory in the return game – exorcising the demons of a title lost five years before – almost felt even more powerful. Piotr Zielinski’s collapse to the floor, lying spreadeagled after Giacomo Raspadori’s injury-time winner, was a lasting visual reminder of the journey to this point.
For sheer helter-skelter nonsense, though, this award goes to the 3-3 draw between Juventus and Atalanta in January, a game that featured some woeful defending but also some wonderful goals.
Worst corner
OK, technically this was preseason, but I’m not willing to let technicalities get in the way of remembering this Dybala gem.
Most dangerous surname
Ademola Lookman thought he was just having some innocent fun when he mimed a pair of binoculars after scoring for Atalanta against Udinese: the gesture of a man looking. The referee, Daniele Doveri, convinced himself this was some form of dissent and punished the player with a booking.
Most regrettable disrobing
Arkadiusz Milik received a second yellow card after taking off his shirt to celebrate an injury-time winner for Juventus over Salernitana in September, only for VAR to disallow his goal for offside after a lengthy review. Worse, it was a wrong decision. The camera angle used somehow missed Antonio Candreva, who was playing everyone on.
Best strategy
The Torino manager, Ivan Juric, explaining how to stop Kvaratskhelia: “You just need to make the sign of the cross and hope it’s not his day.”
Unlikeliest TikTok star
Federico Baschirotto, the Lecce defender and bodybuilder whose muscle-flexing celebrations earned millions of views and a cult following on the video app despite (or perhaps because of) the fact he doesn’t have his own account and is the sort of humble character who prefers to spend his free time helping his parents on the farm. When he agreed to speak at a school assembly in February, there was no chance of getting away without serving a little flex first.
Best football philosophy
Even now, after eight years coaching some of Europe’s top teams – from Napoli to Chelsea, Juventus and Lazio – some observers still can’t quite work out Sarri. In October, one journalist asked him to define “Sarrismo” – the Sarri philosophy, often referred to in English as “Sarriball”. “I wouldn’t know what to tell you,” replied the manager. “Maybe my wife could say: ‘A moody man and a bit of a dickhead.’”
Worst treble
Sure, all three Italian teams failing to win their European finals was rough but spare a thought for the Esposito brothers. This past Sunday had the potential to be an occasion to celebrate, with Salvatore, the oldest, starting for Spezia in their relegation playoff against Verona, Sebastiano, the middle child, doing the same for Bari in their Serie B promotion playoff against Cagliari, and Francesco, the youngest, coming off the bench for Italy’s Under-20 team in their World Cup final against Uruguay. Instead, all three wound up on the losing side.
The Timberlake Trophy for things that Go Around and Come Around
In May 1993, a young Massimiliano Allegri scored the goal that set Pescara on the way to a famous 5-1 win over Juventus. The Bianconeri never conceded that many again in a Serie A game until this January, when Allegri, now their manager, took them to Napoli and got walloped by the same scoreline.
Craftiest appointment
Sixteenth in the table and reeling from an 8-2 defeat to Atalanta in January, Salernitana concluded that the time had come to fire their struggling manager, Davide Nicola. Two days later, they named one of Serie A’s foremost relegation escape artists to succeed him, a man who had previously rescued Genoa, Torino, and Salernitana themselves from the drop in consecutive seasons: the one and only Davide Nicola. It worked … but only indirectly after he was sacked again in February and replaced by Paulo Sousa.
Most scathing
Sarri, responding to a reporter’s suggestion that Lazio might benefit from going into “ritiro” – the classic training retreat often used by Italian managers when things aren’t going so well – as their form wobbled in April: “As Fantozzi [a famous Italian movie character from the 1970s, cursed with unending bad luck] would say, this is crazy bullshit … if the ritiro really worked then Perugia would have gone to the Champions League for 15 years running.”
