Inter Milan and AC Milan are starting to come back to life, also Atalanta and Lazio are really good, Juventus is giant as always so there is hope for Serie A

Always loved Serie A and always will. Growing up watching Del Piero, Totti, Maldini, Buffon, Veron and all the others was remarkable experience.

90's Serie A was the greatest league that ever was

[TLDR warning] As Italian, I will list answers answering more than this video. Sadly almost none of these things haven't been discussed in the video. Let's start from the famous "7 Sisters" - the main 7 teams which dominated the italian football in the 1990s. All of them got either a scandal or a problem with property in terms of finances. For Juventus - Calciopoli and the post Calciopoli till Andrea Agnelli took over. For Inter - 2010 and the fact Moratti was heavily indebted enough that in 2013/14 we were close to go bankrupt, then Thohir and then Suning property. For Milan - the fact Berlusconi didn't want to invest a ton of money, especially after the 2011 political venture of his and his historic condemnation with 564 mln Euro in the De Benedetti long time trial For Parma - check "Scandalo Parmalat", one of the largest frauds in European History of Money laundering and fake accountability, exploded in early 2003 when Parmalat - a holding dealing mostly with food and dairy products - basically cheated on a tons of financial activities. Then Parma got relegated, failed twice more, and now it's in Serie A again For Fiorentina - Vittorio Cecchi Gori's group failed in late 2001, lead Fiorentina to relegation and then bankrupt in 2002/03 where they restarted as Florentia Viola and then was took over by previous property, Della Valle. For Roma, well, the Sensi Family for decade was taking in loans from a tons of diverse banks as their holding company was heavily indebted. Then they sold to Pallotta and now to Friedkin. For Lazio, check "Crack Cirio" another food holding industry which failed because of the accounting creativity and financial scandals caused by Cirio company holder, mr Cragnotti (former owner of Lazio) Plus other teams got bad faiths, and some of those won in Europe in 80s/90s Sampdoria, for example, failed the transition from former ERG owners, Mantovani family, to new ones, till they came back and then moved the property to Ferrero; Napoli had a tons of problems with finances in early 2000s, leading them to bankrupt, till De Laurentiis restructured the company and then well, built since 2004 today the team we all know Torino, got the same faith as Napoli, till Urbano Cairo took over the society in 2006. Other teams instead became famous for other shitty reasons Udinese in Italy - a squad who got 3rd in 1998 - became the money laundering team due to the Pozzo property (See Granada and Watford). Plus their football trade of totally unknown players for which they became a joke Genoa in 2005 cheated on some games when they won the 2nd division (Serie B) when they had Milito has main striker, then 2 years later with 2 promotions they got back to Serie A. They became famous for continuous trades with Milan and so on Perugia which won an Intertoto, failed due to Gaucci's family scandal. Now they just got relegated in 3rd division. The most of problems are beyond any TV deal, and so on. We have laws (both local and national) who made impossible to build new stadiums. I am from Brescia (which you quote) and since 1997 there have been talks about making a new stadium and always there has been a problem with project, authorization and so on. Unless you end up to have a situation like Juventus (which bought former "Delle Alpi" stadium and made on the same ground for a very cheap price the "Juventus stadium") or a situation like Frosinone (the guy owned a terrain and made a stadium on it) or Udinese/Atalanta (the municipality made no biggie in authorizations so they changed the stadium rapidly), it's almost impossible to build stadia fastly. The law about stadia changed just in late 2013 but it was full of caveats. Go check the situation Lazio and Roma faced (still face) or the situation of Inter and Milan which got unblocked just recently. The rest is a bit true, but not too much made the faith of italian league so declining like it was in 2006/2016 decade.

The 90s Italian Seria A was the best league to watch. I remember I used to watch every weekend on the telly. Baggio, Van Basten, Caniggia. The list goes on. How times changed.

Sky made the The Premier League. The brand, the promotion, the whole production is unbelievable. How they can make Bradford vs Charlton a mouthwatering tie is beyond me but they did.

I fell in love with the Serie A in the 80s and 90s. Still my favorite league. But yah, the Serie A is a shadow of its former self. Young kids today wouldn't understand just how good it used to be. Those days are long gone. Sad.

Seria A was amazing in the 90's. Does anyone remember it coming on channel 4 in the UK. Good times. I do believe that Seria A will be the best league in the world again.

My personal favorite team after Inter and Juventus that time was Roma absolutely loved that Totti-Cassano duo

Can’t believe we got through this video without a mention of football italia on channel 4 in the 90s!

As former Swedish international player Glenn Strömberg stated in an interview (regarding his transfer from Benfica to Atalanta in the mid 80's): "There was or is no league that was as good as the Italian league was back then. It had just been opened up to foreign players, but each team was only allowed to have two foreigners. The Italian clubs paid good salaries and picked the best players in the world. But it was not just about the money. Every week I met the best players in the world. Juventus had Michel Platini, Napoli had Diego Maradona. And when we were at the bottom (of the table) and met Udinese, I got to play against Brazilian star Zico. It was a fantastic time. There were no players who did not want to go to Italy. And when I got the chance to come to Italy, there was no alternative."

Serie A in the late 80's early 90's was still I believe the most glorious time in Football.

The Italian tradition was that the big clubs were funded by rich owners and the clubs themselves ran at a deficit. This was not a problem as the owners often had plenty of money to put in from other parts of their business empires (very similar to how public entertainment worked in the Roman Empire!). This model was completely mauled by the introduction of FFP regulations which requires that the clubs have only limited operating deficits, regardless of the owner's finances. Juventus mostly dodged this hit as they had started reforming their business already after they got relegated for matchfixing in 2006 and they were thus much better placed to meet the new regulations. For some clubs, the arguably confused and rushed handling of the transition to FFP compliance just made things worse, but the the introduction of FFP itself is what tore the big clubs down from their lofty heights.

I rather watch Seria A than la liga at this moment

Downsizing stadiums is the way forward for Italian football, it’s tough watching Napoli, Lazio etc playing in giant stadiums with the seating far away from the pitch.

Video idea: second season syndrome, is it real? EDIT: to everyone who liked, I hope your team has a good season!

Serie A has been one of the most exciting leagues this year! Serie A is on the rise again, more and more world star players are coming to the league; now with La liga starting to slow down without Ronaldo and Messi in a few years I really think Italy can rise to their former glory

Day 5: the decline of Scottish football - how teams like Celtic and Aberdeen went from European trophies to struggling to qualify and why the national team has become so poor

To be honest last year the serie A was one of the most entertaining leagues to watch. The football they play is different

Whilst I do agree that there are numerous factors triggering decline of Serie A, I think that world football is at harsh decline. Mid '90s and '00s (especially 1998 World Cup in France) are absolute peak of world football - ranging from quality of football, national teams, iconic players, iconic teams and moments, jerseys' design, the whole atmosphere... Yes, there were a lot money involved back then too, but today's football is destroyed by big money - mediocre players being paid enormous amounts from the get go, lack of motivation, the vibe is missing... Damn, I miss the time when Calcio was at the top.

Serie A is my favourite league this season; anyone’s for the taking and a huge crop of talent scattered about the division 🇮🇹

I have to be honest. The best part of Serie A WAS those old stadiums. Huge arenas - with a massive away following - constant noise and flags, colour and flares galore (the latter of which could be thrown onto the massive gaps between the stands and the pitch and not affect the game).Brilliant! I miss it greatly.

Absolutely brilliant video, Alfie. Your research is as always second-to-none. I can only hope Italian football rises again to where it belongs. It may have fallen away over the past 15 years or so but to me it is the most entertaining football to watch.

Love these types of videos. I'm so glad there's someone on youtube making detailed videos about the history of individual leagues.

If the Seria A regains its soul I could be pushed to watch professional football again

When Bournemouth’s tv money is about 50% of Milan’s revenue tells you a lot. Arguably its good that Italians are unwilling to pay over the top for tv or tickets

8 months later, the Serie A has gotten really interesting

Late 80s early 90s was when Seria A was at it's peak. AC Milan had the Dutch trio of Gullit, Van Basten and Rikjaard. Inter, the German trio of Matteaus, Brehme and Klinsmann and Napoli had Maradona, Careca and Alemao.

video idea: 7 best right footed left backs in the bottom half of the turkish fourth division

I really enjoyed this last season of the Serie A. It was enthralling! So many teams gunning for it.

Hey man this was an awsome video rich with great Italian history. I'm not italian at all but I respect the hustle. As always brother cant wait for the next video. It be nice hearing recent history for each league like from the 70's to present day. Good stuff man

0:40 showing a picture from a Chievo home game is unfair tho, they never had fans😂

That parma team was serious, scary strong line up.

At least Serie A is mostly fun to watch these days. I'm from México and, as a far as I can remember, we only started getting some Serie A matches on cable on ESPN right around the time "Calciopoli" happened and it was honestly unwatchable. Most matches were so boring that even the commentators would acknowledge it on air.

As an fb fan, watching closely since 1984(born 79) I can tell you are always on point, you underline interesting football history events and in general you are pretty much the best yt channel on football out there

Such a consistently entertaining and informative channel. Keep it up!

Day 54: every scorer of the 2014 World Cup group stages, where are they now?

its so sad what has happened. I remember when i first got into the sport in 09 milan was everywhere. the milan derby was must-watch tv just like el classico and i remember going over to my friends house just to watch it when it was on. Nowadays he doesn't even care about football anymore and milan haven't been relavant since like 2014ish.. man time goes fast

Informative videos are exactly why I watch HITC Sevens

Love the fact Gordon Durie was the player chosen to represent Spurs on the Premier League promotional poster! Everybody else on holiday?

That AC Milano was by far the real ‘Galácticos’, not Real Madrid, and Carletto was by far the manager who learned a lot from dramatic experiences of losing incredible tournaments that had its name on the silverware, like the Serie A in 2000 Juventus, the Intercontinental Cup in 2003, and the unforgettable Champions League of 2005. Italy was still the biggest football power in the world until 2010, and then everything fell down in spiral. Nowadays there is a light at the end of the tunnel with teams like Internazionale and Atalanta, in a couple of years there could be a new champion of Europe from the boot lands.

Serie A has been on a rise lately...idk this vid might be 5 years late

Excellent overall analysis breakdown... Serie A in the 90's was scintillating!

3:10 Shevchenko howls to the moon and adjusts his ear to listen for a response.

Great video! There will never be anything like serie a from 1984-2006

What happened? First of all, Calciopoli. Then the financial crisis of Southern Europe in general, which forced Berlusconi (AC Milan) and Moratti (Inter Milan) to sell. This transformed Serie A into a version of the Bundesliga, where every season it's "Juventus and the rest", as in "Bayern Munich and the rest". But still, Italian managers are IMO the best tactically, even if they don't have revolutionary visions and ideology. Ancelotti, Allegri, Conte and Mancini had great success in the 2010s by delivering solid and tactically astute football. Not to mention people like Lippi and Zaccheroni still active in national teams around the world.

This was so insightful thank you.

Money happened, they could pay the most in transfers and wages back in the 90's. More players are going back to Italy again as the income tax rate players are paying in Seria A now is just 25%

Just in the last 5 years, many Italian clubs have grown and have been recovering from shaky grounds. Looking back just 5 years, many wouldn't even turn to look at Italian football, even if AC Milan was playing Inter Milan. No one knew any of the players. And since they couldn't even make it out of the Champions League group stages, no one cared about italian teams other than to make fun of them when they would lose against AZ Azmaar or Zenit. :D

I'll be sad to see the San Siro go. Such an iconic stadium

Fantastic video man. Your researching and insights are really top class

A coincidence. Just last night I was playing Fifa '96 on my playstation 1. The Serie A teams were great. Baggio, Ravanelli, Vialli, Gullit, Maldini, Van Basten, Zola, Asprilla, Winter, Signori, Balbo etc

This guy produced some of the best football mini documentaries you will find anywhere. He crams so much information into such a small amount of time but you don't feel overwhelmed. Keep up the good work geezer you're doing an epic job

In Turkey, we still reminisce and hold dear the "legendary AC Milan squad", so much so we can still write the first 11 from memory. This has become such a matter that we use mid-2000s AC Milan squad as a test to separate true football fans from wannabes.

Keep these vids coming Alfie there your finest work

still remember when AC Milan was scary af in europe

I still enjoy Serie A more than the Premier league here in England. Inter last season played some great stuff!

Interesting video. For me, the most shocking bit was the part about Italian clubs not owning the grounds they play on. I actually clapped at the part where it was stated that some of them are taking steps to rectify it.

Nice vid, definitely one of your best

Great video today keep it up your doing amazing job

Thank you Alfie for this video, don't know if you decided to do this video after read my comment or not, I once wrote a video idea about Golden era of Serie A, and when this video came out today it just pure sastified for me to watch :)) Tbh I never watched 90s Serie A, the reason makes me curious about it was because my cousins who lived through the 90s always boasted how great 90s Serie A was and also called my favorite league EPL is a joke compared to 90s Serie A. Well I don't want to compare but it's clearly people nowadays usually consider everything from 90s were better than what we have these days, negative nolstagia I would say :))

It was, without a doubt, the best league in the 90s. They had every superstar. Zidane at Juve was unbelievable, and then you had probably the greatest No. 9 in Ronaldo. They also had the GOAT. Pierluigi Collina

Growing up Serie A was the gold standard. The best of the best played in it. Maldini, Ronaldo, Zidane, Del Piero, Totti, Cafu, Bastiatuta, Nesta, Ruo Costa, Thuram. Man.. it was amazing.

Very accurate video, you pin pointed every single aspect with the exception of the role that banks had in the past. Following "Cirio" and "Parmalat" financial scandal Italian teams were no able to borrow as much as they did in the past. That combined with all other issues mentioned in the video led to Serie A decline.

Good to see Maradona mentioned as this video was made before his death.

The running track stadiums are all horrendous

Amazing video Alfie! Correct in everything you said. It's a shame really, the Serie A is such a beautiful league to watch. Napoli has tried hard to get their own stadium but the fans said they won't go to a stadium that is too far from the city. The city won't sell the San Paolo but have come to an agreement that the money that Napoli pay to rent the stadium is used to renovate and keep the stadium up to date. So far the renovations have held up but it's like having a house built in the 1950s with google home smart appliances installed and the house is still falling apart.

By far the best content

I remember when I used to believe Italian derby’s were even hotter than El Classico. I used to defend the Italian game to friends. They laugh at me now

Serie A has been on the rise in recent years. There are problems of course, but some of the things I’ve noticed with Italian clubs is really good. A lot of these teams are developing their own talent, which not only makes teams profits when they are inevitably transferred. With teams like Atalanta’s track record of developing talent, it makes the Italian National team stronger. Since Calciopoli, The National team has; won the 2006 World Cup, took the Spanish to penalties in the quarterfinals of Euro 2008, went to the finals of Euro 2012, took the defending world champion German team to penalties in 2016. I’d even wager when the 2022 World Cup comes around that not only will the Italians be there, but they’ll be a force to reckon with.

Great vid mate

After the World Cup 98, watched Serie A every Sunday channel 4. Loved watching Batistuta play for Fiorentina, amazing player for that team and Argentina 🇦🇷.

4:27 Ruud Gullit is wearing a Duck Tales tie! 😂

Have followed serie a since the late 90's. Still love the league despite the fall off in quality

Sad, but so true. This breaks my footballing heart.

Very nice upload.. enjoyed it a lot

7 greatest highlight reel footballers.

Well this video needs an update as we can talk now about the rise of the serie A again. The style of playing is so much entertaining than before, a lot of goals, maybe some better performances at the European level and and at least like 6 teams whose can beat every other team in the league and the most important thing is that la liga has stalled in their progression. For me after the premier league, serie A is the second best right now

This was a great video

as an italian, THIS is the video I was looking for

My dad said when he watched Italian Football on Channel 4 it was defensive and managers like Alldyce, Pulis say that's where they got there style from. My dad has been to the San Siro and watched a Charity match between AC and Inter Milan in the 2000's possibly 2001 before I was before

All great points. I think the fall of some of the greatest Serie A teams in early 2000s is worth noting as well. Fiorentina went from having players like Toldo, Rui Costa, Chiesa, Nuno Gomes, Balbo, Mijatović, Batistuta, Taddei etc and almost aking it to 1/4s of Champions league and beating Man Utd in 99/00 to filing for bakruptcy and relegation to Serie C2 in '02 Parma went from runners-up and winning Uefa Cup and a couple Coppa Italias to insolvency in '04 after Parmalat went down, losing star players like Buffon, Cannavaro, Thuram, Veron, Crespo, Amoroso, Nakata, Ferrari, Brighi, Frey and Gilardino among others in a span of 3-4 seasons, never to be relevant again and ultimately bankrupting in '14 Lazio went from quarter-finalists of CL in 99/00 and winning the Serie A to losing key players like Nedved, Nesta, Stanković, Crespo, Stam, Mihajlović, Oddo etc. in the next years. It was never the same after that, Inter and Milan had some success in Europe in late 2000s, but Calciopoli and the crisis of '08 just did the league in.

Excellent, another documentary

great video mate 👍

You didn't mention this, long story short: in the 70s all of the countries were making debt, they were just spending more than how much they could afford. In 80s and 90s obviously (almost) all the countries of the world started to give all their money back, but not Italy. Italy continued to make debt, and the 90s were a gold era because of that. They were just paying but not using their money. All of this came down exactly in 2006: there was an enourmous scandal named "tangentopoli" that included all of the country economy and a lot of big companies, "calciopoli" was just a part of that bigger scandal of mafia and corruption. Italy still suffers from those years, I'm sorry if it's not understendable

Great video but I think you missed some wider factors. Italy has a declining young population and the Italian economy hasn't grown in real terms in 20 years, both of which undoubtedly would affect match day and domestic revenues.

Gave too much credit to EPL, Abramovich was the sole reason behind the big money transfers from Serie A,other than that the great example of the counter-argument is Arsenal,spine of the team was comprised of Serie A flops such as Vieira,Henry and Bergkamp

90's Serie A was the best league ever of this world, it was like an Nba of football ...... .......but 80's Serie A was from another world: 80's were the gods time, and they were all here: Platini Zico Maradona Baggio ...... and then Van Basten and Gullit and Matthaeus Beside them all the greatest players of every nation: Boniek, Socrates, Careca, Laudrup Falcao, Rummenigge, Rijkaard, Voeller, Brehme, etc. ..... and then the italians: Cabrini Zoff Scirea Baresi Maldini Every given sunday ....stadiums of 50-60-70-80-90 thousands people were full of people with much colour, chant and genuine passion In an ordinary day of January, in an ordinary Udinese-Napoli (9th and 8th ranked) you could see Zico and Maradona at their absolute peak ..... and it seemed normal Not paytv, not sponsors, all matches at same time in daytime in the early Sunday afternoon ......it was nothing but a ritual

What's really surprising is the failure of English football to capitalize on the influx of top coaches and players, it took Guardiola among other Spanish executives to come over to Man city to push forward their youth programs but they still can't seem to win anything relevant or put forth a national team which reflects the talent in the EPL. Italy for the lack of talent after the 2000s they still manage to win some international silverware lol. One has to wonder when will England win anything or maybe is just a cultural thing, where they can only win on paper but never in reality.

Idea: all time Premier League 11 from a single country. All Italians, French, Irish eg.

Maradona, Careca, the Dutch trio, the german trio … and the great italians … great times.

2000-2010 -Premier League Era 2010-2019- LaLiga Era 2019-2030-Serie A Era the amount of change i've seen in the league in just the last two seasons shows me this league is coming back for its thrown as the best league

Mourinho is such a strong personality that even when speaking about teams, we are used to saying "the Inter of Jose Mourinho.."...

I think Premier league back in 2008 & 9 was the greatest league ever. Man united, Liverpool, Chelsea and arsenal were so close in points. It was all to win for until the very end.

Thank you for the nice words on Atalanta

Not only were the players unreal, that era in serie a produced some tremendous kits, those old sampdoria kits 😍

In my opinion, La Liga has also suffered since the mid 2000s. I'd say that from 1996-1997 to 2007-2008 the league in general was a whole lot better. Looking at 1996-97 for example, Valencia had Romário and Ortega, Bilbao had Lizarazu, Betis had Finidi, Zaragoza had Morientes, etc. Even in the Spanish Second Division, Salamanca had Pauleta.

Seria A coming back, attracting English players and Italian national side absolutely brilliant.

The goles was the key for me. Someone said that you can always find a mistake in all goals, therefore the perfect match would have to be 0-0. The Italian games were chess games and that began to tire the fans. I remember that in the premier league you saw a lot of technical and tactical failures but it was more entertaining.

Heart breaking