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Real exit shows sense in stability
Football has no price. So screamed Spain's El Pais newspaper after Real Madrid's €260m revamp failed to improve their dismal six-year record of going out of the Champions League at the first knock-out stage. "Titles are not bought, they are won."
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Will Real Madrid ever realise that managerial stability brings trophies? | Paul Wilson
Arsenal and Manchester United prosper in Europe as the new Galácticos fail. It is more than coincidence
Football has no price," screamed Spain's El Pais newspaper after Real Madrid's £235m revamp failed to improve their dismal, six-year record of going out of the Champions League at the first knockout stage. "Titles are not bought, they are won."
Those words must be music to the ears of Sir Alex Ferguson, Arsène Wenger, Cristiano Ronaldo-haters around the world and anyone else who believes schadenfreude at Real Madrid's expense is not only justified but part of the natural order of things. Unfortunately they are just words, there is no profound truth in them. Real Madrid may have come to resemble the rich kid in the cake shop who hogs all the treats and then is sick on the way home, but everyone else is in the cake shop, too. You have to drop a long way down the divisions in modern football to find the metaphorical equivalent of street urchins pressing their noses against the window.
Manchester United, for example, did not produce Wayne Rooney, and neither did they buy him with buttons. He cost £26m, about £4m less than Rio Ferdinand, but that was a lot of money six years ago and plenty of Everton fans are still unhappy about the way United made their wealth and status count. Similarly Sporting Lisbon supporters, while fully accepting that Ronaldo, like Rooney, developed and prospered on a bigger stage, were less than delighted about a player who had rocketed through their youth ranks being spirited away after only 25 senior games. There's no point complaining about it, though, it's just how football works.
In their book Soccernomics, European football analysts Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanski calculate that 92% of football success is due to money. That's why Everton don't win anything, despite being excellent, and why Bill Kenwright had the begging bowl out again last week. Had Everton been able to hang on to Rooney they might have been able to win something, earn some extra money to build a team around their star player, and perhaps replace Liverpool in the Champions League and never look back, but in real life they couldn't hang on to Rooney, or even to Joleon Lescott, so they must dream slightly less ambitious dreams.
Football definitely has a price, and it is that of the highest bidder. Titles can certainly be bought, as well, unless the success spikes of Chelsea and Blackburn in the past couple of decades can be put down to the wildest coincidence. It is worth adding that titles cannot be bought like cream cakes, you need a certain amount of patience and the ability to find and back the right manager, though ultimately putting a Kenny Dalglish or a José Mourinho on the payroll conforms to the Kuper‑Szymanski theory. If you have enough money to buy the best you should eventually be able to hurt the rest.
That was undoubtedly Florentino Pérez's philosophy when he relaunched his Galáctico project on his return to power in Madrid, only to find it falling to pieces even more quickly than the first time round. Despite all the will in the world and a good deal of money, it seems Real Madrid cannot buy titles. Not European ones any longer, at any rate. They must be doing something wrong. There's no need for Sherlock Holmes, the Spanish press can supply the answer.
"Adios Pellegrini" is the current rallying cry. Real Madrid were a disgrace, so the manager will have to go. Yet when Real Madrid are not a disgrace, the manager usually still has to go. Manchester United have had the same manager for the past 24 years. In that time, Real Madrid have had 24 managers. Not 24 different ones, granted. Leo Beenhakker, John Toshack, Fabio Capello and Vicente del Bosque have all been there more than once in that period, yet it has to be significant that while United (and to a lesser extent Arsenal) have reached unprecedented heights through managerial stability, Real have made, on average, a managerial change every year for the past 24.
Nothing more need be said, really, except perhaps that some of the departing managers, Beenhakker, Toshack, Capello and Del Bosque among them, left after winning La Liga. Del Bosque, in fact, in his last period in charge, picked up two league titles, two Spanish Cups and won the Champions League twice, yet still had to make way for Carlos Queiroz.
The former United assistant stayed one season and is now in charge of his native Portugal, while Del Bosque is coach of Spain. Capello is taking England to the World Cup, Toshack is staying at home with Wales, and Beenhakker is back in Holland as technical director at Feyenoord, but only after periods in charge of Holland, Saudi Arabia, Trinidad & Tobago at the last World Cup and then Poland. It is fair to say there is enormous managerial experience and ability within the aforementioned group, yet hardly any of it was properly tapped by Real Madrid.
Del Bosque might be an exception, yet even though he has had the job three times the best manager Real have had in recent seasons had his feet under the table for under four years. That's like Arsenal thanking Wenger for all he had done and saying goodbye to him 10 years ago. The politics surrounding the presidential system appear mostly to blame for Real going through good coaches at such a wasteful rate, and it is no coincidence that settled managers such as Wenger and Ferguson have developed an antipathy to the way Real go about their business. Madrid may have more luck with edgier Iberians such as Mourinho or Rafa Benítez. Neither is fancied to stick around indefinitely with his present club, and both are on the Real radar. It would not be the greatest surprise to see one or the other at the Bernabéu next season. If Real stay true to form, the other one can be expected to turn up a season or two later.
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Italy's Serie A is heading for the B-list
Italy's clubs are now more renowned for antiquated stadia than top players, leaving them in danger of losing a Champions League berth
Sadly, kicking calcio when it is down is nothing new. Italian football's problems are well documented. AC Milan's powerlessness against Manchester United emphasised dipping levels of performance in Europe. Inter's untroubled dominance at home tells of a league struggling for competitiveness. Gone are the days when the biggest names in football would play in Serie A, as Diego Maradona and Michel Platini did in the 1980s. Nowadays, the departure of the best players – Kaká and Zlatan Ibrahimovic moved to Spain last summer – smacks of lowering standards. Then there are the poor attendances. The antiquated stadia. The outbursts of racism and violence. The harsh and stressful policing. The financial headaches brought on by the after-effects of the corruption scandal.
And the malaise is about to worsen. Since Uefa allowed the blue-chip leagues to enter four contestants into the Champions League 10 years ago, Italy, Spain and England have had that privilege sewn up. Serie A, however, is in danger of losing one of its places to the Bundesliga.
The top leagues in Uefa's ranking list – the coefficient table – earn the most places. A nation's ranking points are earned over a five-year period, by all clubs competing in the Champions League and the Europa League (formerly Uefa Cup). If the remaining teams from Germany outperform those from Italy in the remaining weeks of the season, Serie A clubs will be playing for three Champions League places next season.
It may not be of much concern to José Mourinho when he waltzes back into Stamford Bridge on Tuesday, but there is a bigger prize at stake when Inter try to guard their 2-1 first-leg advantage against Chelsea. The same goes for Juventus, who carry a 3-1 lead to Craven Cottage on Thursday. They are representing their league as never before.
In opposition, Hamburg, Wolfsburg and Werder Bremen are all in a good position to qualify for the next round of the Europa League. Stuttgart might have it all to do at Barcelona but Bayern Munich are already through in the big one. Overall, the Germans are confident they can seize that precious and prestigious extra Champions League place.
It is all but certain to happen anyway in 2012, when the process rolls on and points earned from the 2006 season – when Milan, Inter and Juventus all reached the quarter-finals and German clubs fared poorly – are discounted.
May is a hugely important month for Italian football. The morning after the Champions League final, the new coefficients are announced. The following week Uefa name the hosts for the 2016 European Championship. Italy are bidding. So are France and Turkey. Italy are desperate. "We need it not only for the team, but for the football culture," says Carlo Ancelotti. "We need to build new stadia. It is very important."
A lot of Italy's difficulties root back to stadia. Serie A grounds are, on average, 63 years old, and the last time most of them were treated to any kind of makeover was for the 1990 World Cup – before the movement to upgrade conditions for spectators began to take shape internationally. Turnstiles were introduced relatively recently as a security measure. In terms of toilets and concourses, food stalls and entrances, conditions in Italy are old fashioned, and at odds with a country famous for its love of taste and beauty.
And if you do feel compelled to forgo the opportunity to watch a game from the comfort of your sofa (every match in Serie A is live on pay-TV), new rules make it a bureaucratic nightmare. If you wish to bring a flag you have to give a week's written notice. Fans must have a tessera del tifoso, an ID card, which permits you to buy a ticket with your name on it; and security checks are intensive. Feeling ill on the day? Sorry, nobody else can use your seat. A wedding you can't miss on matchday? Too bad, you will not be able to pass on your ticket. Marcello Lippi, Italy's World Cup coach, has been a critic of the ID cards, which, he says, "create ghettos".
Unsurprisingly, the average crowd in Serie A last year was 10,000 lower than in the Premier League, and 17,000 lower than the Bundesliga.
Giuseppe Russo is a Milan fan from the village of Castel Baronia, near Avellino. He is worried about ID cards, which were introduced to try to ease crowd trouble. "The simple fact is stadiums in Italy are already half full on a Sunday afternoon and this will only make things 100 times worse," he says.
"I've been going to watch games for the last 10 years, but I haven't only been going to watch the football, but the amazing atmosphere that the Ultras bring to the stadium as well. Offenders should be dealt with individually and banned from the game for life like in England. But there are also some Ultra fans that are there to bring the atmosphere, banners and colour to a football match and not make trouble. I can understand that the Italian football federation see this as a way of tackling hooliganism, but I see it as putting one more nail in the coffin and killing Serie A."
Russo admits to feeling jealous of the stadia at the last World Cup in Germany. "Look at Cologne's stadium, Dortmund's and Hamburg's, all-seat stadia that look comfortable and welcoming. Then take a look at Bologna's and Siena's, which don't even have a roof."
In Turin, work is afoot to bring about the foundations for change. Juventus are rebuilding the Stadio delle Alpi, which is due to open in 2011. It is modelled on the English design and will have fans close to the pitch and all the top facilities expected of a modern ground. It is also the first privately owned stadium in Italy. All the others belong to the municipalities.
It takes a giant leap of faith to imagine clubs elsewhere will follow suit though, despite a law going through parliament intended to simplify the planning process for football stadia. The big problem is money. Clubs do not have it. Municipalities do not have it.
Winning the vote for Euro 2016 could motivate everybody into a plan of action for reform. As well as the new stadium under construction in Turin, there are plans for new grounds in Cagliari and Florence, and renovations at Bari, Cesena, Napoli, Parma, Udinese and Verona.
"It represents an historic opportunity to transform the quality, security and ambience of Italian stadiums," says Giancarlo Abete, president of the Figc, Italian football's governing body.
But many are worried. There are those within the Figc who believe Uefa will play safe. France's stadia are largely sorted, and World Cup 98 was hosted well. Italy have made promises about funding to redevelop their stadia but there is a big worry that the financial commitment is unrealistic.
One of the grandest nations in football is crying out for the kind of helping hand recently offered by Uefa and Fifa to South Africa (World Cup 2010), and Poland and Ukraine (Euro 2012). If they can do it, surely by hook or by crook, Italy can find a way.
European round-up, page 19
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