Ambition, Rise and Fall of Italian Serie-A

Italian football league, or more known as Italian Serie-A is a football league which born so many big names in world football. It is no doubt that so many legendary names had played on this "Catenaccio" League.

On the 90's, every big European competitions such as Champions League, UEFA League, Winners Cup, Intertoto Cup, had its champions came from Italian Serie-A League. It began with AC Milan's era with its Dutch trio. AC Milan won Champions League 3 times on that era. Sampdoria almost succeded AC Milan's glory by went through on Champions League Final and Juventus succed to be the champion in 1996.

On the early 2000's, Serie A still had managed to rule the Europe. It marked with AC Milan that become a champion again back in 2003 and 2007. The successive campaign continued when Italian National Football Team "Gli Azurri" won the FIFA World Cup although they should face calciopoli  (match fixing scandal). the succesive campaingn of Italian football in Europe was closed by Inter Milan back in 2010 as they won Champions League when Italian Football condition was in the dying moment.   

Famous footballers like Diego Maradona, Michel Patini, Marco van Basten, Silvio Piola, Juergen Klinsmann, Lothar Matheus, George Weah, Ronaldo, Javier Zanetti, Andriy Shevchenko, Zinedine Zidane, including some of the famous Italian footballer such as Roberto Battega, Dino Zoff, Paolo Rossi, Franco Baresi, Roberto Baggio, Paolo Maldini, Alessandro Del Piero, Francesco Totti, Andrea Pirlo dan Gianluigi Buffon. They are widely known by entire football fans around the world from 80's up to 2000's.

Almost every big competitions was held such as FIFA World Cup or Euro, every big player from Serie-A would dominance that competition whether homegrown or foreign players.

What makes this league so dominance in the past and way far beyond Spanish League or English Premier League when at that time they still constructed a fully professional league on their land ?

Enthusiasm and ambition from the owners of Italian Serie Clubs on the 90's became a trigger which made Italian Serie -A become the best league on that period. Each owner of the clubs had a courage to brought some of the biggest football player to their land. Began from Napoli that surprisingly brought Diego Maradona on the 80's. He become one of the most expensive footballer at that time. The mark of Diego Maradona as one of the most expensive player was followed Gianluigi Buffon, Hernan Crespo, Christian Vieri .

Ambition had also become a factor that ruined the reign of Italian clubs in Europe and also its Italian Serie-A. Due to their over the limit mercato (Transfer) even from the middle clubs from Serie-A marks their own destruction financially.

Began with the bankruptcy of AC Parma due to their liabilities that way beyond the limit including from his owner itself, the bankruptcy continued to Fiorentina and and force them to play on amateur league before they could bounce back to the top flight league. It also happened to Napoli, Sampdoria and Lazio due to its owner's bankruptcy.

Mistaken ambitions from the owner of the clubs to reach their glory emerged Calciopoli scandal.   Juventus, AC Milan, Fiorentina, Lazio, and Reggina were found guilty on that scandal. The biggest punishment was forced to Juventus as they should play on Serie B, one level below Serie-A.

As we saw, ambition could become the two sides of coin and it could bring some contradictive impact, brought the glory but brought the destruction on the other side if it were mistaken. The condition of Italian clubs is the recent evidence of the greedy in world of football.

We now is seeing some of the biggest and richest football clubs outside Italy doing the exact same pattern as Italian clubs did in the past. If their ambition is once again mistaken, we shall see another destruction on world football just like Italian football did. Potentially some of those club from English Premier League, Spanish La Liga or French Ligue 1 will follow Italian Serie-A' footsteps if their top level managers or their owners are mistaking their ambition.