Stories of precipitous decline are not unknown in Italian football and it should be noted that Serie B is not the equivalent of the Championship, nor is Serie C League One.
Sampdoria (the other Genoa club) — the club with the storied
past has edged out of the automatic relegation slots of Serie B and into the
zone that would, come June, at least give them a play-off chance of avoiding an
unprecedented drop into Italy’s third division.
Sampdoria won the scudetto, the club’s only Italian league
title, in 1991. A year later they reached the European Cup final at Wembley. This was the clubs ‘golden era’, although
some fans thought that it sacrificed some of its distinctive character.
That peak Sampdoria coincided with Italy’s showing off that
it had the world’s best league to a broadening global audience. Not least to a
generation of British fans, whose most regular fix of live football on
terrestrial television came in the 1990s from Channel 4’s Serie A coverage.
In a way its crisis is emblematic of some of the problems
that have beset Italian football, including allegations of corruption and
decaying stadiums, not to mention the ultras: there were violent clashes
between Lazio and Roma supporters and the police yesterday.
A number of top clubs, or those seen with potential, have
seen American investors acquire what they think are under-priced assets. Sampadoria has had Italian ownership and had
to be rescued at the beginning of this season.
There have been four changes of head coach this season alone.
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