Woe betide you to think that observing, analyzing and talking about football could be tiring Aldo Serena. Born in 1960, a thoroughbred center forward in the best moments of our Serie A and then an appreciated commentator. His observation point is now the Sky Sport team of which he is part and which allows him to cast his gaze on today’s football in Italy and Europe. Our home garden is the one we aim to reconquer, for now without great chances.
Is it still worth telling, Aldo? “My life has been and is football, I have always played in Italy, I have played in the most representative teams, the ones that have the most championships. I am significantly involved both in terms of the game but also in terms of emotion and emotionality.” Therefore, it is especially worth it as we approach the start of the season in the midst of a summer which is that of the third World Cup seen from the sofa (“painful experience”) and questions of sports politics. “I always look at the present and the future with anticipation and curiosity and also rooting for our movement”.
What summer is our football experiencing? Looking at the market we are not in excellent health…
“It’s a transfer market that seems a little modest, of those who remain on the sidelines. Our clubs don’t have the strength to compete with battleships like those of the Premier League or like Paris Saint Germain or even Real Madrid and Barcelona.”
So, should we resign ourselves and give up?
“So you have to make the market judiciously and it seems to me that Italian football has gone against the trend in recent years. We managed to win a Europa League with Atalanta and reach the Champions League final twice.”
Is the idea that we can make up for the economic gap with intelligence, imagination, a bit of intuition still valid or is it increasingly a utopia in a football that is polarizing in this way from an economic point of view?
“We have no alternatives in Italy, we must necessarily go in that direction. So implement scouting, try to arrive before the others, also find formulas that are different tactics from our traditional football. In this change I would also involve the technical center of Coverciano, the coaching school, where the new coaches are trained.”
The new one in the Italian championship was seen at the hands of Fabregas. Are you one of those in love with his work and the Como project, which also has proud critics, or not?
“I don’t define myself as in love, but I realize that there are clubs that, even having notable availability like Como, because Como from an economic point of view is a powerhouse, are taking a direction to follow. It’s not the absolute verb, because if you don’t have the possibility of having certain players it’s not like you can do it with those who have a reduced technical quality. So to play at those levels you necessarily have to have a high quality of players.”
Where do you place the bar for Como next season, after another summer in the transfer market as a big name in Italian football?
“They have to deal with the Champions League and therefore they have to deal with the high-level midweek matches that take away psychophysical energy. Fabregas has almost rebuilt the defensive line and all the changes have to be verified in a short time because the movements are learned but it takes some time to understand them well. In attack and in midfield there have not been major reinforcements that can put last year’s starters in crisis. So the test to overcome for Como will be to learn to face the Champions League matches and then return to the championship with the same intensity.”
Is Inter’s advantage over the others in Italy as large as it seemed in the second half of last year’s season?
“Inter have accumulated a clear advantage which they should now try to keep, but Inter are also struggling with the usual issue of a difficult transfer market.”
Is Chivu right when he says that the time has come to make some investments to raise the level?
“He’s right, we should. But if the owners aren’t willing and the managers and the coach can only ask but it doesn’t come to a conclusion, we stay put… Inter has a structure that is certainly more established, more qualitative than the competition, but it should increase the quality.
Is Napoli eligible for the Scudetto? Did you choose Allegri to try to give continuity to Conte’s cycle?
“I believe that in De Laurentiis’ thoughts there was Allegri’s past at Juventus and what happened when he took over the structure created by Conte, continuing to win and keep Juve at the highest level. Everyone knows that Conte is a coach who asks a lot, who is demanding from all points of view and who finds it difficult to stay in the same place for many years because the players also have limited stress tolerance. I believe that De Laurentiis hopes that Allegri can with his classic methods reinvigorate a team that was perhaps a little stressed.”
And the new Milan? Isn’t it risky to completely change your playing philosophy without getting deep into the squad?
“He has also tried in the past with other coaches. I seem to have understood that Amorim still doesn’t have a definitive idea about the squad he has in hand, but he may also discover that he has a very deep one. There are players who didn’t perform at all in the last season and who perhaps have qualities and could also be good for his idea of play. The important thing is that Milan have found a centre-forward, someone like Goncalo Ramos who is someone who scores goals and is found in the penalty area.”
Should you still bet on Leao or not?
“I honestly wouldn’t bet on Leao. In the many years that he was at Milan we got to know him well and I think that’s what we saw: a player that you don’t always have, sometimes he solves your matches, but he lacks continuity and in a big club like Milan that wants to become great again you have to have continuity.”
Juventus also needs to be deciphered. Spalletti continues to reiterate that last year a good job was done, but then came a terrible placing. What is the horizon for Juventus?
“I didn’t quite understand why Bremer was on the market at the beginning of the summer and whether there was a desire to sell him, but it seems to me that he is a fixed point in Spalletti’s rearguard. With Kolo Muani he has repaired the hole in attack and we will see if he can find a midfielder of order, who begins to build and who has the technical ability to be able to put the attackers in a position to go for shots even on the first move. Alajbegovic will struggle to find ownership straight away with Yildiz and Conceicao also because Spalletti is unlikely to start with all of them and a striker on the pitch at the same time. We need time to make the mechanisms work.”
The new Fiorentina is tantalizing.
“I look at Fiorentina with curiosity but it’s not easy to change half of the outfield players and get off to a great start straight away. Fiorentina has changed a lot of them. I’m attracted to understanding what Atta will do, which I’ve always liked because he has that way of touching the ball like Olise that puts the opponent out of time. And then there’s Oulai taken in Turkey, seen at the World Cup, a twenty-year-old who has leg and technique.”
Did you expect a different summer from Roma after returning to the Champions League?
“Yes. Maybe even those nervousness that we have seen, those underlying tensions that are even a little Gasperini-like, say so. I think he is not happy so far with what the club has made available to him because he did it last year, bringing them back to the Europe of the greats. It is a Roma that must also be ambitious, must also have a bit of availability and follow the instructions of its coach.”
Aldo Serena is one of the best-known faces of Sky Sport’s team of football talents who will bring a great football offering to the platform and streaming on NOW between now and June 2027. The European Super Cup between PSG and Aston Villa will begin on August 12th and then over 2,000 matches and more than 4,000 hours of live broadcast. On the menu, Serie A Enilive (3 matches out of 10 per day in co-exclusive and in 4K, in addition to big matches with at least 30 of the best 76 matches of the championship, including 4 direct clashes between the big teams), Serie C Sky Wifi, Premier League (until 2028) and Bundesliga (until 2029).
From September the 500 European matches featuring the Champions League (185 matches out of 203 per season exclusively until 2031), Europa League and Conference League, both exclusively. There will also be space for women’s football with the Serie A Women’s Cup, the Women’s Super League, the Coppa Italia Women (from the quarter-finals) and the Supercoppa Women.
