All at the feet of the Goddess. Atalanta’s feat, capable of overturning the match against Borussia Dortmund by giving a historic night in Bergamo, prevented Italian football from a negative record that would have had a devastating impact on its image. Never since 2003, the year in which a system involving the round of 16 was introduced, has Serie A been left without teams in the top sixteen of Europe’s major competition.
Atalanta avoided having their record updated and it doesn’t matter if they now face an opponent of an even higher level. The panorama of the Champions League round of 16 mercilessly photographs the balance of power in European football: there are six English teams (Manchester City, Arsenal, Liverpool, Tottenham, Newcastle and Chelsea), the three big Spanish ones (Real Madrid, Barcelona and Atletico Madrid), two German ones (Bayern Munich and Bayer Leverkusen) one each for Italy and France (PSG), remaining the five continental top leagues. Then we must add the outsiders: Sporting Lisbon, Galatasaray and above all Bodo Glimt.
English domination of the Champions League is the result of wealth
The English predominance is not surprising. It is the simple transposition onto the pitch of the excessive economic power of the Premier League: in the latest Deloitte Football Money League, six clubs from across the Channel appeared in the top 10 for turnover led by Real Madrid and Barcelona. Curiosity: apart from Manchester United, who are not even qualified, nine of the top ten in the league table by revenue are in the round of 16 of the Champions League and the first of the luxury eliminations is Inter who was in 11th position.
Returning to Serie A, it is the second season in a row that Italian football has managed to bring only one representative into the top 16 of the Champions League: a year ago it was the turn of Inter, who then reached the final in Monaco against PSG. The double consecutive season with only one qualifying for the round of 16 had already happened between 2013 and 2015curiously also in that situation with an Italian Champions League finalist: Juventus beaten by Barcelona in Berlin.
This statistic is enough to draw the negative balance of our contingent in this edition of the richest and most important cup. An alarm bell that rings loudly for the entire movement, including the national team: the truth is that since UEFA changed the format by inserting the play-off in February, Serie A has managed to make it through only one time out of six. Juventus came close to achieving the feat against Galatasaray, but their overall tally remains poor: three wins, one draw and eight defeats in 12 home or away games.
