Serie A under attack

Desperate times call for desperate measures, right? And a case could be made that any time is a desperate time for Italian soccer.

This weekend, for instance, Lecce's match was held up twice by flares and firecrackers thrown by fans, in spite of all the safety measures allegedly implemented since last year. And Giovanni Galeone's recall to a Serie A bench as Udinese coach caught everyone by surprise, even though, on closer inspection, it shouldn't have.

As did Brescia's outrageous move in sacking their coach Rolando Maran, fresh from a 3-0 win and in fifth-place in the Serie B, and replacing him with Zdenek Zeman, an iconic figure in Italian football if ever there was one.

Which goes to show that despite the predictability of the race for the Scudetto, Serie A keeps producing a variety of reasons for fans to keep watching.

Of course, as frequently noted here, if you looked too hard at the web of commercialisation, TV rights, machinations, intrigue and sheer name-calling going on behind and in front of the scenes, you'd be put off watching the Serie A (and B, and C, and...) forever. But the lure of football is still too strong, and even conceding the title to Juventus, as everyone has done in the media and on the pitch, one can find enough reasons to keep his interest.

Roma and Fiorentina slugging it out for fourth place and a chance to cut their holidays short in order to prepare for the Champions League third qualifying round? Poor Treviso trying to beat the all-universe record for home defeats in a season? Udinese trying to challenge Inter and Milan for second place? Er, sorry. Got that one wrong. In fact, they're one point above the relegation zone, only three months after just missing out on qualifying for the Champions League's elimination phase.

Readers may remember we reported on their precarious, misshapen state late last year, after a game they won at Parma. Their situation has since deteriorated to the point that another coaching change was made, after their early February decision to cut Serse Cosmi loose and turn the keys over to player-coach Nestor Sensini aided by a 'proper' (i.e. badge-holding) manager, Loris Dominissini.

After six Serie A matches yielded a meagre two points for Udinese, and last Sunday's 0-4 home defeat to Milan where the Bianconeri appeared to have forgotten every concept of defensive positioning, Sensini resigned citing the frustration at not being able to sit on the bench during matches as the main reason. Dominissini followed him down the plank, though not of his own volition.

Enter Galeone, 65, whose very surname ('Galleon') could suggest all kinds of puns on Udinese's sinking ship. He has been portraid in the media as something of a folk hero in Udine for taking the side back to the Serie A eleven years ago, but that was then.

After Galeone fell out with owner Giampaolo Pozzo, other coaches in Francesco Guidolin, Alberto Zaccheroni and Luciano Spalletti gave the moderately-passionate local public sweet moments and great football. The contrast with the current dire situation a squad full of good players with great potential finds itself in is striking, especially with a crucial relegation six-pointer at Messina coming up.

Galeone, it must be said, lives in Udine and had been spotted watching training sessions even before Udinese's form nosedived as a result of in-fighting and what ultimately emerged as Cosmi's shaky relationship with some of his players. One of them, striker Di Michele, was sold to Palermo during the winter transfer session.

Galeone knows his side and won't have to spend long hours watching the x-rated videos of performances, especially given the last couple of months. Their last win came in December; their confidence is down and heads drop easily as soon as a goal is conceded - as showed against Milan.

On the other front, Czech-born Zeman, 58, replaced poor Brescia caoch Maran whose main flaw was not being as famous and iconic as his successor or, as owner Gino Corioni put it, 'being too cautious'. Cautious, Zeman isn't.

He and Galeone share a worrying propensity for self-inflicted damage - not only on a personal level, as heavy smokers, but in their choice of professional paths. Both are devout followers of the centuries-long theory that goes 'thou shalt not keep a clean sheet', the one that advocates scoring one more goal than your opponents rather than letting in one fewer.

Last year, Zeman's Lecce were Serie A's best attacking side but let in too many goals in an apparent disdain for defensive efficiency and tactical awareness in their own half. Despite Lecce's brilliance, they tailed off near the end of the season and needed to avoid defeat in their final home match in order to stave off the drop.

Enter owner Rico Semeraro, who did not renew Zeman's contract amid a blooming of theories: he either was jealous of Zeman's popularity among most fans or did not want to keep a person who's never been afraid to speak his mind and challenge the establishment, such as in his long crusade against doping in football.

A crusade which by all means and purposes cast him as a Juve-hater - ironically, his uncle Cestmir Vycpalek had been Juventus' coach in the early Seventies - which is always a dangerous role to play in the current Serie A climate, even though Fabio Capello's open disdain for the Turin club's mentality and power while he was at Roma did not prevent him from becoming their coach a few months later.

The other theory was simply that Semeraro was irritated at Lecce's lack of success despite Zeman's Messianic-like appeal (they're now going down after going through three managers, by the way, which makes Lecce fans' anger at Zeman's dismissal easier to understand).

Zeman does appear the type who commands respect and devotion. He speaks in a deep voice, pausing between words, his body language implying his thought process runs too high for mere mortals, but he is capable of doing things out of the ordinary for someone who's rich and famous.

When Pope John Paul II died last year, Zeman was one of the few VIPs who did not resort to the very Italian practice of using 'contacts' in order to jump the queue of those lining up to pay their respects to the deceased Pontiff. Zeman, instead, waited and waited just like everyone else in the long line snaking around St Peter's Square, and was praised for this, in a country which generally speaking appears to praise integrity but practice short-cutting.

This sort of larger-than-life demeanour has not stopped him, of course, from making mistakes from time to time. A lot of times, indeed. His teams, which never deviated from his beloved 4-3-3, never won anything but left a lasting impression for their attacking style and flair.

Foggia impressed in the early 90s under him, Lazio came second in Serie A in 1995, third in 1996 and led the league in scoring twice while Roma finished fourth and fifth, but damningly for him both won the Scudetto soon after his departure. His latest endeavours at Fenerbahce, Napoli, Salernitana and Avellino (who dropped to the Serie C1 with him in 2004) ended with little success.

After being let go by Lecce, he was rumoured to be the choice of a group of businessmen who were trying to take over at Parma this season, which would have been hard for current coach Mario Beretta who's been working wonders with limited resources. His decision to accept Brescia's offer despite the obvious disrespect for Maran's work did not sit well with some fans who are still cautious about embracing his style.

His first match in charge ended in a 1-0 reversal at Bari and made his goal of going 11-0 hollow, then a home win followed last Saturday amid rumours that Zeman, unusually for him, had chosen to save much of what Maran had done.

Nowhere to be seen are, for the time being, Zeman's notoriously strenuous training sessions, the no-nonsense dietary prescriptions (former Foggia striker Pierpaolo Bresciani once said players used to smuggle sandwiches in their training dorms to compensate for the vegetarian-only cafeteria menu) and carefree tactical approach.

But then one reads what he said on Saturday ('I believe playing well comes first, I'm only interested in winning through nice football') and nods knowingly, as if seeing someone who appears to have lost his memory then goes straight for the cookie cabinet as soon as you bring him home.

Now, the cliche about the calcio being all about catenaccio and dull, defensive football is long gone, but isn't it still, well, surprising to see that two teams struggling to achieve their goals have called in coaches who have a reputation for attacking football?

What's next, three Italian sides entering the Champions League quarter-finals as favourites? On second thought...

---

Email newsdesk@soccernet.com with your thoughts.