That pretty much sums it up.

Roma is atrocious ffs.

Roma is atrocious, there was no real shame in Milan's loss and Inter won but the EL teams, FFS. They are making 5-6 changes and playing like a bunch of retards, losing against teams who certainly aren't as good on paper.

true, i had to laugh about Rossi saying CSKA are simply stronger than Palermo ffs Palermo can beat anyone if they pull their head out of their ass. Same for bloody Roma too.

Galliani slams Europa League exits
Adriano Galliani has blasted Juventus, Sampdoria and Palermo. “Italy will have three Champions League spots and we can thank the Europa League sides.”

Italy has been in a battle with German football for several years over who deserves a fourth qualification place in the top competition.

Serie A’s position in the UEFA rankings will drop because Juve, Sampdoria and Palermo are all out of the Europa League in the group phase.

Napoli will find out tomorrow against Steaua Bucharest if they are also crashing out of the tournament.

“The Italian sides have collapsed in Europe and from 2012 we will have only two teams going directly into the Champions League with the third going through a preliminary round,” said Galliani.

“It is damaging to our football. For all this we must ‘thank’ above all those who played in the Europa League.”

Juventus, in particular, were expected to do better in the competition, but drew all of their group games.

Meanwhile, Milan Vice-President Galliani also wished Inter good luck for the Club World Cup.

“Of course I say ‘Forza Inter!’ In Serie A we are rivals, but when playing on the international scene absolutely not.

“When we won the trophy three years ago, I felt like a world champion and certainly not as if we’d won a summer tournament.”

The comment was aimed at Roberto Mancini, who as Inter boss had joked about the importance of the Club World Cup when Milan took the trophy.

http://football-italia.net/dec14y.html

Is this Milan who again lost a home game they should win on paper once they had qualified? Milan who didn't win a home game in last years CL? In fact they have been doing this since at least the new millenium. Every time they have needed a result they have got it. Every time they haven't needed a result they have lost. So let's cut to the chase, it comes down to importance of the games.

Galliani should wake up and see that no one gives a fuck about the Europa League, as shown every round with weaker squads being fielded, or 'rotated' as the coaches call them, so no wonder they are losing to teams who see this as a premier motivation and competition. Like the small European sides Juve faced, who were doing nothing in their domestic leagues. And of course on top of that you can point at performances and luck, like playing in a blizzard, but I've watched all Serie A sides in the EL this season and they are shadow sides of what we see in the league. And that's nothing to do with opposition, of which most has been limited and inferior to what they play every week in the campionato, the body language of teams and players is just shit.

Of course the clincher is that for some fuckbrain reason UEFA consider the EL comparable to the CL and give points accordingly. As so, Italy will remain in 4th behind Germany for many years, as they don't approach the tournament in the same way. It may even get close to France, but who cares, 3 places is 3 places.

Everyone 'judges' a league based on the CL success anyway. It's started mattering now because of the changes UEFA made plus the decreased prestige of the UEFA Cup/EL. Basically it's nice to win it if you get to the later stages, you want to. But risking players in the group stages for Serie A games, which have always been the priority of Italian sides as long as I can remember (except Milan, funnily enough, and their obsession with the CL which is reflected by their recent record in that competition and pitiful recent Serie A success record) just isn't going to happen.

Galliani says this shit every time Milan have a decent run in Europe, but we don't hear anything when they are struggling. This bent bastard should sit in the shadows with the other crooks. Maybe if he and his associates didn't go out to deliberately harm calcio in the first place there would be more strong teams who could get results even with rotated teams.

Although I understand the reason behind Juve taking the EL lightly, I have a problem with teams like Napoli, Palermo and Sampa fielding weaker teams in the EL as they're not big teams. It wouldn't be a failure for them to finish 5th for example. It wouldn't be a failure to not get in the CL. It would be a dream, yes, but they aren't ready for the CL. Imo, they should take the EL seriously as it would give them more experience in Europe and that could help them one day to achieve a top 4 finish or top 3 as things are going.

Well I disagree with Napoli and Palermo as that really is their objective, even if there are 6-7 sides who are looking at CL. Both of those sides have to be taken seriously now, they have quality players.

Sampdoria won't be anything more than top 8 without Cassano.

we'll agree to disagree then

Without a doubt, Napoli and Palermo have very good talent, but I'm not sure those players are developed enough to bring their teams to the big league.

I think they'll start to lose their heads around mid February or start of March.

Well, look at the CL, despite Roma's terrible start, all three Italian teams qualified for the knockout stages, which shows that Italian clubs are not pushovers on the European stage. Pretty obvious, then, that the Europa League is just not taken seriously at all, because it's a JOKE of a competition. The likes of Palermo, Samp, etc. don't care about the EL because their objective is to get that 4th CL spot, and so they save themselves for league matches. Even today, needing a win, Napoli are resting Lavezzi, Sosa, Dossena and Gargano...

sure, I never said that they aren't capable of getting results in the EL, they could win it if they put in the hard work. But you also have to look at Sampdoria, they have secured that 4th position last season but they didn't have any experience in Europe so they went out to Bremen in the CL qualifications.

Experience takes time to be taught and developed and they can do that by testing themselves in the EL.

Palermo actually won away at Lausanne

LOL and Napoli score in injury time through Cavani, as I was saying

Fester is seriously brain damaged. I wish someone would wire his mouth shut.

Yup...

But in other news, Carlo Garganese is biased, but he makes a good point in the following article:

http://www.goal.com/en/news/1717/editorial...n-italys-fourth

What have German clubs done in the one UEFA competition that actually matters? Next to nothing... the German clubs, like most teams from smaller leagues, throw themselves at the Europa League because to them it means something.

This is Samp's lineup that is losing in Debrecen. Only three players (Dessena, Sammarco, Poli) with any real experience, a Primavera striker on his own up front, rookie keeper, 3/4 kids in defence. Laughable.

At first looking at just the lineup I had no idea what team it was, then I read your post...