All but two teams in the Italian top flight have now played nineteen matches this season, and apart from those two teams everyone has faced everyone once home or away in Serie A. A much clearer picture has formed of the lay of land than existed in August.
Now the twenty (or possibly nineteen, we’ll get to that in a minute) teams in the division head into a post-winter break schedule that’s as packed as before the teams pissed off for the holidays, followed by the spring climax which promises drama as usual, be it of the Scudetto, Europe, or relegation variety. Many of the clubs can be expected to dip into the market during the January transfer window, though this could well be more limited than is the case in say the Premier League due to the wretched finances that are ubiquitous in the league.
We now have enough serious data to start comparing the state of things mid-season to what our prognostications and prophecies were at the beginning of the campaign, and I will endeavor to do so from the perspective of a resident Serie A head among the FC Stroitel Pripyat Ultras. We can also make predictions for each team’s fate over the business half of the season, something I will also try to accomplish here.
The format of this series of posts will be simple – I will go through each club in Serie A, moving up the table, and lay out where I expected them to finish before a ball was kicked, where they find themselves now, and where I ultimately expect them to finish, and include a write-up explaining each.
So without further ado, we’ll start with the team who are pretty unambiguously the worst in the division and work our way forward from there.
Salernitana
Where I expected them to finish: 20th
What I thought at the beginning of the season: Sometimes you get a team with a properly doomed aura coming into a top flight season, and that’s pretty much Salernitana.
I’ll confess that I don’t know a great deal about their squad, but all indications are that it is pretty crap when compared to even Spezia or Empoli, let alone any of the teams who have been established in the top flight for more than a season. None of the players here have any sort of reputation as anything other than Serie B jobbers, and the way that they’ve reinforced has been moderately interesting but unlikely to really catapult their level to being competitive with the teams they’re going to be facing this season.
The core of this team have never or barely ever played in the top flight, and they have acted as for all intents and purposes a player farm for Lazio, with whom they share an owner in the form of Claudio Lotito. Head coach Fabrizio Castori looks to have adapted his methods to play a back-three system with wing-backs similar to that used by former Lazio boss Simone Inzaghi, with a heavily implicit goal of getting players ready to make the step up to the Biancocelesti, and yet the team managed to finish second in Serie B and thereby qualify automatically for promotion.
Head coach Fabrizio Castori was last in Serie A with Carpi where he favoured a pretty organized and conservative back-four system that relied on attacking through either two strikers or through one creative midfielder playing off of a striker, mostly picking up scraps from the counter and really working hard defensively (this is a vague characterization but I can’t remember this team too clearly beyond that). He’s not someone who’s been around Serie A much and I have pretty big reservations that he’ll have what it takes to cope with a league that’s become much more focused on intensity of pressing in recent seasons, although I’d love to be proved wrong by him and by this team.
There are three fairly noteworthy signings who Salernitana look to be relying on in order to give themselves that bit of quality that will give them a fighting chance (four if you expect Federico Bonazzoli to pull up trees for some reason). And truthfully, these are probably the three factors I feel most able to speak about before actually watching the team play.
The first of these is the marquee arrival of 38-year-old Franck Ribery, not yet feeling that he’s done with top flight football after his spell with Fiorentina. I actually think that Franck is a pretty shrewd acquisition, if there’s one thing that you’d have to expect a squad with this profile to lack it is the quality to hold onto the ball in tight spaces, and that’s something that he still has in abundance.
As early as the Guardiola days at Bayern, Ribery was starting to make up for a lost half a step (now several steps) by playing as more of a wide number ten, and his playmaking could well prove a valuable reference point for his team. Not to mention, he’s just a really, really fun player to watch at any age.
The second big signing comes in the form of former Inter midfielder Joel Obi, who Salernitana have managed to bring in somewhat opportunistically from Chievo given the Venetian club’s truly dire recent circumstances. I can’t speak to how he’s been doing in the second division but as recently as a couple seasons ago he looked alright in a rather terrible Chievo team playing as either a left-sided mezzala or wing-back, which is also basically my memory of him in a very tumultuous Inter period.
The Nigerian can likely be expected to settle in well to the style of play as he should still have his legs while he will give them some top-flight level quality with his attacking run, unless he’s truly fallen off the cliff while I wasn’t paying attention.
The last addition of the summer is the one that promises to be the most impactful, in the form of Simy. The 29-year-old exploded with Crotone last season where he was in borderline Capocannoniere contention in a fairly shit site. Obviously this could be a harbinger that the guy’s qualities just make him naturally suited to playing well and banging goals in a team that remain hopeless relegation fodder, but one could also take the more optimistic tack of saying that his goals could keep them straddling the watershed.
The Nigerian is big and good in the air, but also technical and match-aware to roll a defender and get a shot away, so I expect him to hit double figures, though I do not expect this to be enough to represent salvation for this team.
I’m a little curious as to what this side can do, but not very, and the fact that I’ve chosen to focus on new signings probably tells you how much pedigree they have. And if that weren’t enough, they’re embroiled in a snafu concerning the fact that Lotito remains owner heading into the season, this in spite of still obviously still owning Lazio, which is absolutely not permitted, and this could well see them threatened with expulsion from the league. I hope this does not happen because it would be a logistical nightmare and an embarrassment for Serie A, but it would be justified given the rules in place.
Where they currently sit: 20th
How have they done so far: Pretty fucking badly. There have been the few bright spots as specified by the regulations for a team in their situation, but I would not characterize this outfit as plucky.
For starters, Castori was out the door after a few matches for a returning Stefano Colantuano, but the 59-year-old has not really managed to turn their fortunes around or do much to suggest that his methods are suited to the Serie A of 2021. I figure that as long as the severance paid to Castori was not weirdly huge this was not a disastrous decision, but it doesn’t look to have had much of an effect on their form.
Left-back Luca Ranieri has shown some promise on loan from Fiorentina, looking ready for top flight football for seasons to come though obviously not with these guys, and probably also not with La Viola – shrewd pickup for next year’s promoted crop alert.
Ribery has pretty much done as I suspected, becoming a playmaking hub who can control his teammates’ mediocre passes on the turn, win plenty of fouls, and give them some breathing room in the final third. What the Frenchman has not done is give them goals or assists.
Simy on the other hand has been a bit of a damp squib and frankly a disappointment. One goal and one assist is a pretty miserable return for someone who had shown his class for Crotone last time around, and it’s not like his level of play has really warranted much better. Maybe he’ll pick up steam in the second half of the campaign but I wouldn’t better.
Truthfully, large Bosnian pseudo-journeyman Milan Djuric has looked like the better option just for battling with defenders and giving them some presence to make the ball stick somewhere resembling the penalty area, while Cedric Gondo has accomplished little playing off either of them.
Their defense is also the worst in the league, and deservedly do, while the midfield looks to have a bit of spark in terms of energy and dribbling but no real capacity to control the tempo of a game. This team just isn’t very good, unforunately.
Where I expect them to finish: 20th
What’s to come: Salernitana head into the second half of the season the same way they headed into the first – facing possible expulsion from the league because Lotito hasn’t managed to flog them yet. It’s hard to fathom the league letting this happen, but they may be left with no option.
The poor bastards also missed out on their last game of the season due to not being able to travel to Udinese thanks to a COVID outbreak in their squad. I guess that if you want to see the glass as half full, it’s a game in hand by which they could conceivably catch up to fellow bottom three dwellers Cagliari and Genoa, but I think the glass is just half full of shit here unfortunately.
I don’t expect much from them in the transfer market, and I don’t expect much from them on the pitch either. Sorry guys, easy come easy go, best they can hope for is probably 19th if someone manages to somehow be even worse.
Cagliari
Where I expected them to finish: 12th
What I thought at the beginning of the season: The Rossoblu were one of the form teams in Serie A at the end of last campaign to save themselves from what looked like pretty certain relegation. Parting ways with Eusebio Di Francesco, and bringing in former SPAL coach Luigi Semplici, of whom I am a massive fan, turned out to be just the right thing to get the best out of their fairly talented squad, and they went on an excellent run to keep themselves pretty comfortably in the top flight with a couple games in hand, with some pretty memorable games along the way to boot.
This season will be an interesting test of whether the Sardinians can keep that momentum going and actually put together a run that sees them cement a better station for themselves in the division. If their form under Semplici is anything to go by, they should be able to.
Semplici is a bit of an odd duck among Serie A coaches. Usually managers who employ a back three system in this league tend to be in more of the Gasperini mould, pressing high and focusing on using everyone in the team to have a potential man over in chaotic transitional moments all over the pitch – you expect the system to have players go where the action is basically. Semplici, on the other hand, seems to favour a more methodical buildup in possession, with one of the midfielders playing in more of a regista roll and helping out the defenders have a passing option and move through the opposition patiently. We’ve seen this style of play from managers like Marco Giampaolo or Fabio Liverani who do it with a flat back four but less so with a flat back three as Semplici does.
However he does it, the Italian coach has done it, winning many admirers with his SPAL team and quickly whipping a team that looked rudderless under Di Francesco into shape playing his vision. Part of the reason that Cagliari were able to shine under the coach so quickly owed, quite simply, to the quality in their squad.
Ravzan Marin had been one of the few bright spots for me when I watched the Rossoblu under Di Francesco, but the Romanian really shone under his successor. Cagliari have done well to secure the young midfielder on a permanent deal, I feel.
I think that the 25-year-old could stand to be a little bit more considered in some of his passing if the team are to really take their ball-hogging possession style to the next level – he’s not a player who necessarily keeps things ticking over with a high volume of passes. What he is, however, is someone who can put the opposition under pressure with the ball at his feet. Given his physique, low centre of gravity, and energy the closest comparison I can think of that would be familiar to most people is Marco Verratti, minus the PSG man’s ability to dictate the tempo. The Romanian was at the heart of Cagliari’s surge to safety last season, and I think he can be a key player for them this time around as well.
Elsewhere in the team, talismanic forward Joao Pedro really threatens to cement cult hero status with his consistent displays and end product, while Alessio Cragno was one of the best keepers in the league last campaign. Nahitan Nandez has stayed until at least January despite a summer full of transfer links away, and he was a massively important outlet for them in the run-in once Semplici transformed the talented all-action midfielder into a wing-back – an important profile to have given how significant the roll is in attack in a back three system.
As far as departures from last season go, the Rossoblu were unable to agree a new deal for Radja Nainggolan on a permanent basis, which is really too bad as the Belgian was a joy to watch under Semplici and clearly enjoying both his football and the love of the Sardinian supporters.
There’s no question that Nainggolan’s creative influence could be missed, although I think that the signing of his former Roma teammate Kevin Strootman on loan from Marseille looks better than it would have even a few months ago. The 31-year-year-old showed flashes of his Roma peak for Genoa last season where he was on loan for the second half of the campaign, and where head coach Davide Ballardini appeared to have figured out that “The Washing Machine” looks significantly less washed himself if you give him an hour in which he doesn’t really have to hold back. If you thought he was a crock at Marseille, his immense performance in a win over Napoli for the Griffone will have done plenty to dissuade you. Whether he replicates this for a full campaign with Cagliari is anyone’s guess, but I think he promises to be an interesting, though hardly like-for-like, substitute for Nainggolan.
Another player to have left the club after a loan spell is Giovanni Simeone, who has spent most of his time with Fiorentina and Cagliari looking like a well-rounded striker but missing sitter after sitter. In his stead comes Keita Balde, who looked very good on loan with Sampdoria last campaign, if not at the level he showed with Lazio. I imagine that the Senegalese forward will have plenty to offer with his pace and technical ability playing alongside either Joao Pedro or alongside aerial powerhouse Leonardo Pavoletti.
On the left, Dalbert has arrived on loan from Inter to give Charalampos Lykogiannis some competition. He’s hardly Marcelo but the Brazilian should at least provide depth and a proven level to keep up with the pace of the league in a roll that requires a great physical exertion and is vital to the team going forward. I expect Lykogiannis to be favoured more often because his deliveries were often important for the Rossoblu last season, but I’d be happy to be Dalbert-pilled.
Lastly, Daniele Rugani who looked like a massive liability last term has gone back to Juventus, while Martin Caceres has joined his fortieth Serie A club or so. The Uruguayan will likely play in the back three where he’s a proven commodity when motivated.
All in all, this Rossoblu team have a little more to hope for than their table position last season might suggest, given the style of play and how comfortably they escaped the drop once they parted ways with one of the worst managers in world football at arresting a slide in the form of Di Francesco. I look forward to watching them play under Semplici and I expect them to impress in midtable.
Where they currently sit: 19th
How they have done so far: Sometimes the sacking of a manger can really tell the story of a team over the course of a season. Rarely is this more the case than with Cagliari’s decision to let go of Leonardo Semplici after three league fixtures this season.
One point from nine isn’t a great return for a team with a solid squad, but it was frankly far too early to really feel like there was that much to worry about. And truthfully, there was plenty that was encouraging about the performances, at least in my view. The Rossoblu were the dominant side despite having to share the points with Spezia in a 2-2 draw on the opening day, while a heavy loss to Milan just reflected the gulf in quality between the two teams. Letting a two-goal lead slip to lose 3-2 against Genoa was evidently the final straw for those in charge at the club, but this decision was rash to say the very least given that they were losing a coach who had saved their season in very tough circumstances only a few months prior.
The team were linked with coaches as stylistically distinct as Fabio Liverani and Beppe Iachinni following the sacking of Semplici, which did not suggest that they had much of a plan when they decided to pull the trigger. In the end they went with a relatively big-name appointment in the form of Walter Mazzarri, who I guess was trusted to keep the back three system if absolutely nothing to do with the style of play that Semplici favoured. I don’t think anyone expected the former Sampdoria, Napoli and Inter coach to improve the Rossoblu meaningfully on the pitch, but his most recent job with Torino at least suggested that he could just about whip the team into some kind of shape as a counterattacking unit.
Instead, the 60-year-old has looked pretty much out of his depth since his arrival in Sardinia. Even in the couple of years that have passed since Mazzarri’s departure from the Granata, things have changed in Serie A and what was once relatively novel at Napoli is now pretty easy to counteract. Instead of tweaking the team into a more disciplined version of itself as the owners had, I suppose, hoped, Mazzarri has let the level of performances slip to what you would have expected from their place in the table when he arrived.
The Rossoblu have less of a plan in possession than they did when Semplici was on the bench, and this has looked worse and worse as the season has gone on, to the point where the team barely looks like they have any ideas beyond counterattacking. Suddenly they’re right back where they were under Di Francesco, with numerous decent to genuinely good players regressing and no clear way out of the bottom three outside of the individual efforts of Cragno and Joao Pedro.
Where I expect them to finish: 16th
What’s to come: Prior to three defeats going into the winter break by a combined scoreline of 10-0, the Rossoblu managed to go four games without defeat against mostly fairly strong opposition, albeit all four results being draws. If they can get nearer this level than to the form that saw them simply annihilated by Inter before slumping to defeat against Udinese and Juventus, they can probably just about stay up by capitalizing on whichever of the teams in lower midtable have a slump in form. If it’s closer to what they showed in the three defeats, well, relegation is on the cards.
I’d emphasize that this team does still have a fundamentally pretty decent squad, albeit one where some players throughout the spine look either past it or unmotivated. I don’t really back Mazzarri to stop the rot here at all, but even a mediocre coach could well figure it out and see them just over the line. Bringing Semplici back would be funny and could well work – they were a lot deeper in the hole when he arrived last campaign.
Overall, I look at the squad and think that things simply have to get better, and I really do believe in spite of the evidence that they’ll find a way to avoid relegation, but I’ve been thinking that for some time without things getting any better.
Genoa
Where I expected them to finish: 16th
What I thought at the beginning of the season: Genoa have not been shy about throwing money at their squad in the summer transfer window, and going by last season there’s a reason for this. The Griffone not only avoided relegation last time around but finished eleventh on 42 points, but to be quite frank, this flattered them quite a bit.
Genoa were an uninspiring outfit for virtually the whole of last season but they got the job done in the run-in under experienced coach Davide Ballardini, avoiding the situation that they’ve become used to of fighting to avoid the drop until the very last day or two. Experienced heads like Andrea Masiello just about held out at the back with a little help from in-form Mattia Perin in goal, while the likes of Eldor Shomurodov and Sassuolo loanee Gianluca Scamacca alternated with more well-known names Goran Pandev and Mattia Destro to fire them with some individual quality up front.
Both Scamacca and Shomurodov are gone this campaign, as is former Milan defender Cristian Zapata. Another loanee who had been crucial to the Griffone’s efforts going forward was former Torino wing-back Davide Zappacosta who is now an Atalanta player. They’ve also lost Strootman who had helped hold together a midfield while young Juventus midfielder Nicolo Rovella had looked rather mercurial in how he showed his obvious talents through the season.
Clearly the need to replace these outgoings is readily apparent, and as I said, the Griffone have not been shy about investing to improve the team. Hernani arrives on loan from Parma to add a bit of a creative spark from central midfield without sacrificing solidity, while Mohamed Fares will hope that he can play a more prominent role than he did at Lazio, as the Algerian has shown that he can be a more than adequate option playing as a left wing-back during his time at SPAL.
One of the two additions that I expect to really be key here is experienced Ecuadorian centre-forward Felipe Caicedo on loan from Lazio, who is not the most prolific but is at least fairly steady in his strike rate, and while I don’t think he can come close to replicating the qualities that Scamacca and Shomurodov brought to the team last time around he is a proven entity in Serie A and could form an effective enough partnership with Destro. And Destro, it must be said, played his way into a bit of form last season, and I am surprised to say that I see him being an influential and genuinely incisive presence for them up front in the year 2021 and beyond.
Maybe even more important among the raft of signings that Genoa have made than Caicedo (and there are a lot more than I’ve mentioned) should be Nikola Maksimovic. The big Serb hasn’t really been a first-choice option for much of his tenure at Napoli apart from a good spell under Carlo Ancelotti a few years back, but his time at Torino in particular solidified him in my mind as someone with the steady presence, physical stature, and reading of the game to marshall a back three or a back four in this league.
Former AC Milan defender Cristian Zapata has also left at the end of his contract after some decent early performances sputtered out last campaign, while Edoardo Goldaniga also returns to Sassuolo from a loan, with Inter loanee Zinho Vanheusden getting his first taste of Serie A action with the Griffone. I have some questions about how the backline will be put together exactly but anticipate that Maksimovic will be at the centre of it and the experienced, technically gifted Domenico Criscito is likely to play on the left in some capacity. Questions like whether Vanheusden balls out or proves to be a disaster, and whether the very physical and aggressive Masiello has another season left in him are likely to determine whether this defensive unit holds together, as I expect Ballardini to have his team playing a style of football that gives his defenders very high volume of work to do in duels and Maksimovic is the only one that I really trust there.
The big story in midfield will be whether Nicolo Rovella, now on loan from Juventus after he was sold to the Bianconeri midway through last season, can make the step up that his talent promises. The 20-year-old showed glimpses last season but was not a regular in the team as Ballardini especially relied more on experience. Rovella is a fun player to watch when he’s gliding past opponents and playing incisive balls into the feet of forwards, but can he do it over a full season? Stefano Sturaro is likely to get significant playing time given his experience and workrate, while there are worse players to have in the regista role than Milan Badelj.
From back to front, this is not a sturdily constructed squad, but I have the feeling that they’ll have enough to hang on and avoid the drop by a few points in the end.
Where they currently sit: 18th
How they have done so far: It hasn’t been pretty for Genoa this term, and their trajectory has been down rather than up. Ballardini was eventually shown the door in favour of an intriguing bet on AC Milan and Dynamo Kiev legend Andriy Shevchenko, who I felt did a fairly alright job of getting my beloved Ukrainian national team playing a purposeful possession game for much of his time there but is untested in club football up to this point. It all reminds me a bit too much of their ill-fated dalliance with Thiago Motta when they sacked Andreazzoli, and so far it has not worked or meaningfully improved the team. Over-under does not favour Sheva lasting to the end of the season.
One of the few highlights of this turgid side has been the form of some of the young Italian players. Left wing-back Andrea Cambiasso has done well and made himself one of the most relied-upon players in the squad barely out of his teens, so much so that I’ve already stopped doing a double take when commentators say his name and I instinctively think they’re talking about the former Inter midfielder. Meanwhile Manolo Portanova has been handed Sheva’s trust in some recent matches where he has been a quintessential “big guy who runs around a lot” type of profile. You can take that how you like, and the guy is not Xavi reborn in the pass, but I think that the team will be able to use his physicality, aggression, and how difficult he is to knock off the ball over the second half of the campaign.
And Rovella has actually shown some real development, with Ballardini seeming to have grown a relationship with him after a full pre-season – he had a growing influence in some of their best play in the early phases of the campaign, though I’ve found his influence to be a little more muted since Shevchenko took over. It’s clear that there’s a talent there, however, and good form from the 20-year-old should be imperative to any success that Genoa have over the rest of the campaign – he has the gifts to be their star man.
Now, moving from this crop of young Italian players, Genoa have used a *lot* of different guys, and some genuinely mediocre players have made it into the first eleven through the revolving doors. I hadn’t heard of Caleb Ekuban before this season for example, and I do not anticipate hearing about him much after it. More disappointing than this aspect, however, has been the form of some of the bigger-name arrivals.
We all know that big-name signings are a real gamble for a club in Genoa’s position, but I earnestly believed that Mo Fares and Felipe Caicedo would have the performance levels to carry their respective positions despite having been deemed surplus to requirements at Lazio. Not so, as neither have featured much at all, despite very early signs that Fares in particular might experience a renaissance in the team. Both should be on their way in January, at any rate.
Maksimovic, as I had predicted, looked perfectly acceptable as the central cog in the backline for the first chunk of the campaign, but the 30-year-old has been out since mid-October with injury and this has not been a great thing for the team as a whole, as you might guess. Summer signing Johan Vasquez has found himself getting more game time in defense than he would have likely anticipated, while Masiello has been the guy to fill in for Maksimovic at the heart of the defense more often than not. The defensive unit barely convinced with Maksimovic in it, and has struggled even more with the Serb out and adjusting to life under Sheva-ball.
Lastly a word to Destro, who has been the Griffone’s form attacker when fit. The Italian is still an obvious talent and has definitely rediscovered his eye for goal when fit. It’s too bad nobody else in this team appears to possess this trait in any recognizable form.
Where I expect them to finish: 18th
What’s to come: I have yet to see a clear picture of what Shevchenko wants from this team, as they’ve simply gotten played out of most of their matches under him that I have caught. The Lantern Derby was a good effort, and they did their bit to make it a more back-and-forth contest than the 1-3 scoreline would have perhaps suggested, so I take that as maybe the closest thing to a signal that there’s more to come. If they can summon as much motivation over every one of their reamining nineteen matches as they did for one of Italy’s showpiece occasions, they have a fighting chance of executing a brand of football that makes them genuinely hard to play against and through, and direct and vertical enough to get the best out of Destro and whoever else is near the goal.
Shaping this frankly quite ugly squad into a team that presses in a coordinated and intense fashion on a week-to-week basis won’t be easy, however. The squad is surprisingly young if you look through it and so it will be an intriguing litmus test of how Sheva can train a bunch of decent young players to fit his vision – you can already see a fuzzy glimpse of this in how he has brought Portanova to more prominence.
As I said, I think Rovella will be key, and he has the talent to eventually thrive in a team who are organized and energetic when they win the ball back, if he has passing options he will find them. Over the first half of the campaign, the only players in the team who really looked assured and proactive in the buildup phase on any sort of consistent basis have been Badelj and Criscito, and getting this out of the young now-Juventus midfielder even in terms of moving the ball from defense to the advanced midfield could prove key to playing a style of football that is not, well, a bit shit to watch.
As far as new signings to replace the outgoings, I don’t know what Genoa will do and I’m not holding my breath for anything very inspiring to happen. Midfield targets like Matias Vecino and a returning Tomas Rincon will add warm bodies to rotate in with Portanova and Sturaro, but that seems to be about as far as this team’s ambition extends, at least that I’m aware. They’re now owned by some form of US hedge fund ghouls rather than by very parochial Italian guy Enrico Preziosi, but this doesn’t look to have heralded in either a wave of full-throated cash-splashing or some wacky analytics-based focus on players from the Austrian league or some shit along those lines.
I’ve been guilty of saying that this Genoa team will “never go down” and that “they do this every season and always stay up.” I’ve seen them at their worst and confidently decided that they’re one of the three worst teams in the division but this has quickly been tempered by the usual fatalism about how they will find just enough quality from their squad, just enough good performances against either direct relegations rivals or against midtable opposition with nothing left to play for to skate over relegation. This time, though, I am being optimistic and thinking that this will be the season where they are finally punished for their mediocrity and will not escape their fate over the second half of the season.
Spezia
Where I expected them to finish: 19th
What I thought at the beginning of the season: La Spezia did well to stay up last season when many people had written them off for dead, but as is well-known this owed quite a bit to the solid work of former head coach Vincenzo Italiano. With “Vince Italian” off to Fiorentina, the Ligurian club have put their fate in the hand of Thiago Motta, and we will see the former Genoa, Inter, and PSG midfielder’s coaching chops given an intriguing test.
Motta had a brief spell in charge of Genoa where he was, rather predictably, not given a chance to really implement his ideas before being shown the exit door, but I don’t really anticipate that Spezia will be as trigger-happy with the 39-year-old should results not come right away. It’s not hard to see that this squad is basically relegation-quality with a few exceptions, and unless there are severe underlying issues in the dressing room I can’t imagine him being sacked until at least the second half of the season as there’s just very little way that this set of players could possibly “underperform.”
The former midfielder got some attention for his “vertical 2-7-2” formation while coaching the PSG reserves, which will probably lead some to expect some kind of novelty factor to his approach with Spezia, but I don’t expect to see anything wildly unusual, at least without straining to find evidence of it. What I do think that he will do is try and keep the team playing a relatively possession-based style, even in games against the top sides in the division. It very frequently worked for Italiano, who managed some impressive results including a humbling of Milan, but there’s a big question mark hanging over whether Motta can accomplish the same thing especially with a couple big departures.
To start with, I was a big fan of Matteo Ricci last season, and I am frankly a bit shocked to see him drop down to Serie B to sign for Frosinone. The 27-year-old was at the heart of Italiano’s team in a playmaking sense and could have gone to any number of sides in the top flight and not looked out of place, or signed another contract with the Ligurians. Pushing aside the fact that his move to the second division is simply perplexing, his loss could also be a difficult one for Spezia, who will need to find a new means by which to carry out their attacks from midfield to the final third. I expect this to be one of the challenges for Motta that will be worth following.
Milan-owned Tommaso Pobega has also left for a loan with Torino having started to show real flashes last campaign, while Inter-owned Lucien Agoume and Estudiantes-owned Nahuel Estevez are further loan resources on which Motta will not be able to call in midfield.
On a more positive note, young captain Giuliano Maggiore has decided to stay after being a good shout for their best player last season, and almost certainly the player with the most natural ability and the traits which suit a more progressive style of play. The 23-year-old should be ready for a move to a team like Lazio or Fiorentina very soon, but he’ll have to show that last season was no fluke and that he is capable orchestrating play at the level needed for the top flight on a consistent basis in this ambitious team, even through adversity. Meanwhile, the versatile and athletic Simone Bastoni has also stayed a part of the squad.
One interesting wild card in midfield should be Atalanta loanee Vicktor Kovalenko. The Ukrainian has yet to really make good on his promise as a regular starter with either Shakhtar Donetsk, or with La Dei where he moved in January. A loan switch to Spezia reflects the fact that Kovalenko really must start to impress soon, but there are probably worse environments in which the midfielder could show his talents, and in Motta he may well have a sympathetic coach who can instill discipline. Mehdi Bourabia is another cog to work with centrally who has plenty of experience playing in teams who like to have a lot of pssession.
At the back, I think that Spezia have lost their most impressive defenders from last campaign in the form of Ardian Ismajli, who they swapped for Dimitris Nikolau, and Riccardo Marchizza, who also joined Empoli, this time on loan from parent club Sassuolo. Kelvin Adou has joined from Toulouse, though he’s not a player I’m familiar with at all, while Arkadiusz Reca comes in on loan to provide a more forward-minded option from full-back. I’d be pretty worried about how the backline holds together, I expect a lot of rotation as Motta figures out the best way to cobble something together from what he has at his disposal that has both the energy and awareness in it to execute whatever his system turns out to be. They’ll probably be among the team to ship the most goals in Serie A.
Going forward, vice-captain Emmanuel Gyasi is a hard-working winger who was one of the few real fixtures in the starting eleven last campaign and can likely be expected to reprise his role this time around. M’Bala Nzola, meanwhile, was the standout attacker in terms of end product last season and will have to be relied on if Spezia have a chance of staying up, as will the mercurial and tricky winger Daniele Verde.
Riccardo Saponara followed Italiano back to his parent club after the Italian coach got some of his best form in ages last campaign on loan at Spezia, while the Ligurians have brought in a raft of attacking signings, the most recognizable with is probably former Inter forward Rey Manaj. A surprise package can’t be ruled out among all these new arrivals, but I wouldn’t be shocked to see the team very dependent on Nzola for goals and assists in the final third.
Where they currently sit: 17th
How they’ve done so far: Not terribly actually. Motta’s team ended 2021 on a high note with a famous 1-0 victory over top four Napoli, and have looked broadly capable of coping in the lower end of Serie A. Seventeeth place in the table is a pretty fair reflection of the Ligurians’ efforts, although there have been some key problems.
I will start with the good, and name Dimitris Nikolau as perhaps Spezia’s standout performer of the first half of the season. The Greek defender has been the most composed figure in the backline by far, and has rarely been out of the team. Any doubts about whether he could take the place of Ismajli and Marchizza in the eleven have been roundly dismissed as the 23-year-old has proved himself roundly capable of leading the defense, and keeping their goals conceded total to only the third worst in the division despite looking like maybe the most straightforward team to cut through in terms of their team defense.
Another player who has really stood out to me has been Kovalenko, who has not been in the team as much as I feel his performance levels would warrant, but has always brought a level of technical class to the midfield battle when he’s gotten on the pitch. Meanwhile, captain Maggiore has had a fairly solid season, if not quite as impressive as last time around. The 23-year-old has undergone a slight stylistic transition under Motta that I’d almost compare to Declan Rice at West Ham United this season – having largely played as a pure regista when I watched him last campaign, he’s given a little more license to get forward. End product in the final third is not Maggiore’s strong point, but he does have the physical presence to move through the gears and get past opponents with the ball at his feet.
The efforts of these players and the broad level of organization have seen Spezia hold onto one spot safe from relegation, but the reasons why the team are still a good bet to down are painfully obvious. The defense is just bereft of real quality Nikolau aside, and neither Ivan Provedel nor Jeroen Zoet are going to save this side from the drop in goal.
Even more worryingly, no one in this team has managed more than three league goals. Nzola has endured a frosty relationship with Motta, seemingly due to disciplinary issues, and so he has not started nearly as often as Spezia fans would want. Verde meanwhile is the other player I anticipated would be an important spark in attack, and he has been, but largely as an impact substitute. Not one of the attackers signed in the summer has been able to fire this team any further than own goals from opponents have, and creativity has also appeared to be an issue.
So basically, Spezia have done everything in their power to keep up last campaign’s “surprise package playing good football” run, and have been decent value for a spot in seventeenth in the table and certainly looked less dysfunctional than the likes of Cagliari and Genoa, but their quality at both sharp ends of the pitch has not been able to take them any further.
Where I expect them to finish: 19th
What’s to come: I’d back this team to keep their performance levels up at least as high as what they’ve shown so far in the season. Motta will know the squad better than he did after a solitary preseason, and there is just about enough tangible quality through the spine (apart from up front) to at least keep them from really looking lost in games. What they will need is either for Nzola to be brought back into the fold and to show his form, or else for one of the other forwards to explode in the final third.
Nzola also has suitors and could alternatively leave the club, in which case I think going all-in on a quality replacement would be, fairly obviously, of the utmost necessity. Who this would be, I really don’t know. It is tough to identify targets for a club with this small of a budget, and unless they can find someone who’s either out of favour at a bigger club in Italy, or an attainable talent from a smaller league, there is likely no one out there with anything like the proven quality of Nzola. In essence they’d have to pull off the kind of deal that they did to bring in Kovalenko in the summer, but with the added challenge of hunting for a striker who can hit a target like a goal every two or three games rather than a midfielder.
So there is hope, but also very clear challenges that await Spezia, in and of themselves. Maybe more worrying is the prospect of Cagliari and/or Genoa getting better. Spezia’s first match back from the winter break is against fellow Ligurians Genoa and it will already be a real relegation six-pointer, while they face the Rossoblu in March. Getting results in both of these matches will be crucial for Spezia, while they will really have to hope that neither of the two bigger-budget teams behind them in the drop zone can get their act together. Should this happen, then La Spezia are pretty instant relegation favourites, sadly.
Venezia
Where I expected them to finish: 18th
What I thought of them at the start of the season: Venezia are certainly doing everything they can to catch the eye now that they’re in Serie A. I personally think all the novelty kits and so on are gauche, but they’re winning admirers and a sense that they are a team going places. This in spite of having only barely made it into the top flight through the promotion playoffs. And truthfully, this is not entirely without reason.
To the team that escaped Serie B last season, the Venetian club have added a number of very intriguing signings. The two who have received the most attention are MLS youngsters Tanner Tessmann and Gianluca Busio. There is maybe an aspect of being a marketing stunt to this, getting a bit of an attention and revenue bump from curious USMNT supporters, but I also think that how they fare in Serie A will be a really interesting examination of just how good the MLS has gotten. The fact that youth products from the league are being trusted to build a new spine of a team doing everything they can to keep themselves in the Italian top flight is certainly a reflection of the fact that MLS has come a long way from being a retirement league. Venezia cannot afford for these two youngsters to be off the pace or tactically ignorant, and clearly believe that they footballing education that they received with FC Dallas and Sporting Kansas City respectively has gotten them up to the requisite level.
Just focusing on these MLS imports would paint an incomplete picture of Venezia’s designs for the season. I think David Okereke is a really shrewd addition on loan, with the Nigerian having twice won the Belgian league with Club Brugge and looked very ready for a top five league whenever I’ve watched him. His signing suggests to me that Venezia are unafraid to target the kinds of players who Sassuolo, Atalanta, and so on have had success with. Meanwhile, Mattia Caldara will be hoping that he can get his injury-hit career back on track after a mediocre spell back at boyhood club Atalanta on loan last season.
French striker Thomas Henry arrives from the Belgian league as well, in this case Leuven, and is in fact the most expensive permanent signing of the window for the Venetians. I have to assume there’s something there for the amount that they’ve outlaid on him. Lastly, Ethan Ampadu joins on loan from Chelsea after a spell with Sheffield United which will have likely dented his confidence pretty severely. I actually like Ampadu a fair bit, just as a player to watch, but he was pretty bad for United from what I saw. More optimistically, however, the versatile young Welshman is genuinely good in the pass for a defender or holding midfielder, and did have an imperious game away to Tottenham Hotspur in the Champions League knockouts a couple seasons back when the German side had no choice but to play him thanks to injury. This suggests to me that the 21-year-old is still very much a player who can be put back on the right path, and every bit as much a potential source of optimism as the rest of the young signings who Venezia are gambling on.
Young coach Paolo Zanetti, who some may recognize as from his playing days with Torino in particular, has guided Venezia this far, and this is his first season on the bench in the top flight – it goes without saying that this will be a stern test of his coaching abilities, especially integrating many new signings straight into the first team.
Where they currently sit: 16th
How they’ve done so far: Venezia have not looked out of place in Serie A, although I don’t think that they’ve been the surprise package that some were expecting. The Venetians play a measured style of football and aren’t afraid to knock a lot of passes around even against bigger sides as they look to build attacks from the back, while they have had similar issues to those outlined with Spezia in terms of lack of clinical quality up front, albeit less severe.
I would say that Venezia’s outstanding player across the first half of the season has been Gianluca Busio, who has largely looked worth the hype that he has generated. The 19-year-old has not looked off the pace at all defensively, but it has been in possession where he has really shone. The American loves to show from the ball all over the pitch, and has a real range of passing on him. Maybe Busio can be a little over-ambitious with the passes he selects, but this is frankly exactly what the team have needed for the most part, especially given the impressive accuracy of many of his longer passes. Busio has been just about the first name on the teamsheet and has impressed me as much as other young talents like Samuele Ricci and Giuliano Maggiore, and probably even moreso, for how he’s done in midfield.
Busio hasn’t been the only player to have looked excellent for Venezia this season, however. Sergio Romero was brought in a few weeks into the season after his prison-like contract with Manchester United finally came to an end in the summer and, somehow, no other club snapped him up before the season began. The Argentine looks sharp as every and has been the form keeper in Serie A for periods this campaign – in truth, he could well be the better candidate for Venezia’s best player than Busio.
Meanwhile, Okereke has similarly fit right into the team, and the 24-year-old has been exactly the kind of player who could make the difference over Venezia’s rivals in the relegation dogfight. From lovely solo goals to generally menacing play up against the last line of opposition defenses, Okereke has simply given Venezia more at the pointy end of the team than the likes of Spezia or Salernitana.
Not all the players to shine in this team have been new arrivals, however. Attacking midfielder Mattia Amaru has impressed as just about as much as the aforementioned players, while Pietro Ceccaroni has been their most reliable defender.
Ampadu has been a bit in and out of the team and has clearly been seen as more of a midfielder than a defender, a role which has seen him look a lot more consistent and at home than he did in the Premier League last season. I like watching him in a midfield pairing with Busio, as they can really mesmerize the opposition and are a well-suited duo to how Zanetti appears to want this team to play. Meanwhile, Caldara has not really settled in despite some good performances here and there, and has been much closer to the inconsistent big name signing.
Dennis Johnsen has looked like a very tricky winger with close to zero end product, meanwhile, and Thomas Henry is a very combative centre-forward who cannot really be relied upon for goals at all. The squad looks some way behind most of the teams above them, but there are some interesting players about.
Where I expect them to finish: 17th
What’s to come: I’ve seen enough from Venezia to believe that they can keep themselves in Serie A for at least another season. They have an established style of play and I think it’s likelier that they’re forward players will look better across the second half of the campaign than worse.
This is absolutely not to say that they aren’t in for a dogfight. Six points separate them from Genoa, while their last game of the season is at home to Cagliari who could very conceivably get themselves to within three points of them by that point, or even overtake them. For all the sparkling jewels that they look to have unearthed in the summer transfer window, the Venetians have as direct rivals teams with better squads and more spending power as rivals.
Venezia will be hoping that the tactical acumen of Zanetti and the strong spine, along with continued good form from Romero, will be enough to keep them above the relegation zone come the end of the season.