Unlike England where Manchester United always seem to have a game in hand, Italian clubs are always equal in matches played. Wonder why Manchester United always seem to have a game in hand on their rivals?

In the other matches to be played this weekend, AC Milan play away at Catania who look like being safe from relegation as they are 10 points ahead of the last relegation place. They have done well since their return to the top flight, the first time since 1984. They managed a very good 1-1 draw at Juventus earlier in the season as well as beating Roma 3-2 in the new year and last home game out they beat Sampdoria 2-0. I don’t think they will have enough for AC Milan on Sunday though especially as they are on a good run of late. 2-1 to the Visitors.

Juventus in third place are at home to Lecce who are second from bottom and looking like they will be relegated. Lecce are one of those sides like Leicester City in England who you are never sure which division they are in, such is their history travelling between Serie A & Serie B. An easy 3-0 win for “The Old Lady”.

Juventus have not yet fully recovered from their demotion to “Serie B” in 2006 for the “Calciopoli” scandal (which is far to complex to explain here), they did bounce back straight away and last season finished third but they are not yet strong enough to win “Serie A“.

I predict that AC will close the gap between themselves & Inter to around four points by the end of the season but the title will be Inter’s for the forth time in a row & a first Italian title for “Mourinho” in Italy.

Away from the football there are big problems facing Italian football. The biggest is “Football Violence”, which has been bad for some years now. Attendances are a pale shadow of the 70’s & 80’s, bizarrely when England had the same problem. The roles have been reversed now with attendances dropping to very low levels. Sure, the big clubs still get big gates but the point is that you can turn up on the day & get a ticket, something unheard of ten years ago. I know myself from personnel experience when I got a ticket for the “San Siro” which only cost me 12 euros, even thou it was the final of the Italian Cup final. (77,000 attendance).

There doesn’t seem to be a season that goes by without a death being caused by rioting football fans. This is depressing.

When the head of the Italian FA said at an UEFA meeting a few years ago that there was no crowd problems in the Italian League, everybody laughed. I suspect he was trying to play down the problem in order that Italy could be considered for hosting a major Championship(s) again.

As long as the problem persists then the Italian league will carry on losing it’s profitability due to falling gates & Income. This of course means less money to pay for foreign stars who now chose to pay in the English “Premiership“, this in turn means that TV companies pay less for games and so the cycle goes on.

The Italians need to learn from the English in terms of crowd control but most important is that the fans themselves need to change & take control of the political elements amongst their followings. Until that happens, then “Serie A” will continue to fall behind England, Spain & even Germany’s domestic leagues. This has been proven with English clubs beating their Italian counterparts time & time again in the Champions League, something that has never happened before in my life time.

Italy has a wonderful culture and by definition this used to translate into it’s love of football. This, sadly has been dented in recent years. I sincerely hope the Italian authorities are able to turn their fortunes around as a healthy “Serie A” is good for everyone who loves football.

Douglas Martin

May 2^nd 2009