Let's Talk Serie A

Still better than Russia.

I was really hoping Roma would stick around and be a serious contender after they had that long undefeated start a few seasons back.

The league needs a stronger Milan and Inter because of the prestige and power they have. Fiorentina and Napoli are fantastic at times, but just aren't consistent enough to make Juve really sweat.

What. A. Comeback.

Are we gonna actually talk Serie A in here, or are you gonna be a moron? You can only pick one.

Good.

So Dybala is a monster right now. The goal he had yesterday was incredible for anyone who didn't see it. LINK

Wonder if any of the powers in the bigger leagues are going to try to snap him up next summer, even though this is his first season at Juve. Can play multiple positions and do pretty much everything you want from an attacker.

Looks like someone is on a Wodka bender.

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Dybala

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want

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Juventus has kept 10 straight clean sheets (Italian record). This despite losing Vidal, Coman, Tevez. Mandzukic is meh. Dybala is a star, though.

4 straight and looking like 5 Scudettos. But in UCL they were lucky to pull a 2-2 draw at home vs. Bayern.

Roma, Napoli, and Fiorentina embarrassed themselves in Europe.

Inter, Milan, and Lazio are meh.

Not good times in Italy...still. This league needs a serious comeback, but will it happen anytime soon?

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I think your post goes a bit overboard to downgrade Serie A when it's not that bad and actually more teams getting consistently stronger compared to the low point around 2011-12.

Juve is definitely the class of the league but their gap over the rest of the league is often not as much total "head to head" dominance as it is total dominance against the bottom of the table compared to the other top sides.


Roma / Juve matches the past three years, for example, have been extremely competitive with Roma winning two of the last four including the Coppa. Both Napoli and Roma split their head to head matches with Juve this season.

Really, Juve reminds me of those ManU sides for a few seasons that won the EPL by simply winning every single match against the lower half of the table, a lot of them 1-0 even when not playing great.



Not sure drawing against Bayern is really such an embarrassing result either especially considering Bayern is like the 2nd best team in Europe right now and Juve is coming off the CL finals last season.

Juve kept the most important part of their team in tact (the dominant defense that just completely shuts down the bottom half of the table week in, week out).



Coman was never an important player for them in the least. He hardly ever played. Madzukic is no world beater but just as good as any #9 they've had during their run (likely better) and Dybala has come in and actually replaced Tevez's production as the season's gone on. Khedira has been solid in replacing Vidal.

They're really just as good as they've been.





Hard to see where you can say that Roma, Napoli or Fiorentina "embarrassed" themselves in Europe.

None were specifically great but Roma beat Leverkussen to make it through their group and actually looked pretty decent against Real Madrid. They were beaten more than really outplayed all over the pitch to any significant degree.

Fiorentina lost to Tottenham in Europa and Napoli to Villarreal but neither of those are embarrassing losses and Europa League is a bit of an odd measuring stick since none of those four teams really played their top lineups in those Europa knockout matches.


All in all, things are fine in Serie A but there does need to be a team like Roma, Napoli or one of the Milan sides that actually takes the next step up to actually winning against a Real Madrid etc in CL instead of just being around as good as Tottenham or Leverkussen. . . .

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What can you tell me about Alessio Romagnoli? He keeps getting linked to Chelsea, and I've only seen him play one time.

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Romangoli has all the tools to be a great CB in that he's a big strong kid with very good skills on the ball.

However, he just moved this summer for €25m so I don't think he'll be cheap and a lot of the "buzz" is still more potential: "up and down" performances instead of already being a guy that dominates the backline on a consistent basis.


As a fan of the Italian NT, my hesitation is that, at this point and at his age, he's shown about the same "talent" to be the "next Nesta" as previous "Nest Nestas" Ranocchia and Ogbonna (Bonucci was actually a late bloomer).

Without completely derailing this thread, what Italian team should I play with in FIFA? Torino, Genoa and Bologna intrigue me.

I swear I'll post about real life stuff, too.