Udinese is out of the Europa League. Should
it be a surprise? Not if you are a Serie A fan! Portuguese club Braga sent the
‘friulani’ out of the Champions League qualifiers back in August and then
Russian side Anzhi Makhachkala beat them 2-0 on Friday morning to knock the
small northern Italian side out of the Europa League group stage. Udinese has
been an embarrassment to Italian soccer for over the last decade and the blame
can’t be faulted just at the coaching staff or the players. Club patron
Giampaolo Pozzo needs to take a look his team and himself. From next season onwards,
the ‘friulani’ must be more competitive in Europe because they are currently a
team of ‘disgraziati’!
If you are not Italian or an Italophile,
‘disgraziati’ is a term used to describe people who have disgraced
themselves. Based on their performances
in Europe, the tag fits the Udinese players. For a team from the Serie A to
lose to teams from Portugal, Switzerland and Russia is embarrassing. Braga has
been a competitive team in the last few years and Anzhi is another Russian club
with lots of cash being pumped into the club. When you finish third in Italy
though, your club should be far more competitive. Udinese is a club from one
the big leagues, not from a small league!
Francesco Guidolin wanted to resign as
Udinese’s coach after his team’s loss to Braga but Pozzo insisted that he
should stay on as coach. The former Vicenza and Palermo tactician has done what
he possibly can with the players at his disposal and his squad is weakened
every off-season. After all, we are talking about a man who took the ‘biancorossi’
to the semi-finals of the European Cup Winners’ Cup in 1997/98, losing to
eventual winners Chelsea. He has shown that he can get results in Europe with a
club working on a budget.
Guidolin has a tough job and his players
have shown that they can’t handle European football. Despite the lack of good
performances by the players, Pozzo is the real blame for the under-achieving in
European competitions. Constant changes are made to the roster every season and
his coaches need to quickly fit the new players into the team. He buys players
at a cheap price and sells them at a high price. A good business plan it may be
but there are no signs of progression for the squad members that stay on. Pozzo
looks content to see the books in balance yet the goals on the field stay the
same. His players usually go on to be stars but he can’t continuously replace
them just with unknowns. He needs to bring in some quality too.
Udinese has talent scouts and they look for
talent from anywhere in the world, sometimes from the most obscure of places. These
players come from either the small leagues in Europe, small clubs in the bigger
leagues like the French Ligue 1 or German Bundesliga or they are genuine
unknowns from less powerful football nations around the world. Let’s not also
forget the odd Brazilian, usually not one who was not considered a prodigy or a
future star. In the Serie A, using these players somehow works. In European
competitions, how can these guys give Antonio Di Natale enough support? Even he
struggles in big matches, missing the odd penalty for good measure.
This is not the first time. It’s the same
old story for the ‘friulani’. Elimination in the early rounds of the Europa
League is common, even back in the UEFA Cup era. Failure in the Champions League qualifiers this
year isn’t a new thing either. Udinese lost to Arsenal last season. The 2005/06
season was the only time the ’friulani’ reached the group stage of the
Champions League and their failure to reach the round of 16 can be blamed at
Pozzo, who demanded that Vincenzo Iaquinta signed a contract extension. When
the striker failed to do so, Pozzo froze him out of the squad until he signed
it.
Only in 2008/09 did Udinese produce a good
run in Europe. In the final season of the old UEFA Cup, the ‘friulani’ reached
the quarter-finals under the guidance of Pasquale Marino and goals from Fabio
Quagliarella. Unfortunately they ran into German side Werder Bremen, who has a
good record against Italian opposition and possessed Brazilian playmaker Diego,
who went to Juventus in the following season. The ‘friulani’ lost 6-4 on
aggregate but Werder did reach the final and Marino’s team did better than what
other Udinese sides had done before or since.
Aside from the memories of 2008/09, Udinese’s
displays in Europe have been a joke. Having said that, how can the team improve
if the likes of Quagliarella, Gohkan Inler, Alexis Sanchez and Samir Handanovic
aren’t maintained? Di Natale is a great player but is he somewhat threatened by
their presence because they can be better players than him? Udinese won’t do
better in Europe if its stars are replaced by the likes of Maicosuel, Heurtaux
and Willians!
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