Not even an alien invasion could change the narrative for Italian football. Cristiano Ronaldo was hailed as an extra-terrestrial when he touched down in Turin, a five-time Ballon d’Or winner arriving in a country where no player had got close to the award since Kaká claimed it in 2007. The Portuguese forward was supposed to carry Juventus to European glory. Instead, they won an eighth consecutive Serie A title, and nothing more.
Ronaldo, for the most part, delivered. He did not hit those otherworldly heights of his best years in Madrid, but 28 goals and 10 assists are hardly a pittance. His hat-trick bailed the Bianconeri out after a catastrophic first leg against Atlético Madrid in the Champions League last-16, and he struck in both legs of the quarter-final defeat by Ajax.
Still, few predicted at the outset that he would finish behind Fabio Quagliarella and Duván Zapata in the scoring charts. The former turned 36 in January. The latter had never gone beyond 11 goals in his previous five seasons in Italy.
Look beyond Juventus’s dominance, and this was a season packed with unexpected twists. Atalanta, playing vibrant and ambitious football, finished third – higher than ever before in their 112-year history. They outscored everyone, including Juventus, and ended the Bianconeri’s bid for a fifth-consecutive domestic double with a 3-0 Coppa Italia rout.
Inter, tipped as title challengers after adding Radja Nainggolan, Stefan De Vrij and Lautaro Martínez, instead produced a re-enactment of their previous campaign – finishing with the same points and again scraping into fourth with a nerve-shredding final-day win. OK, perhaps that bit was less surprising, but the path the Nerazzurri took was something else.
Eight points clear of fifth at the start of 2019, Inter had won the derby, beaten Lazio 3-0 in Rome and earned results at home to Barcelona and Tottenham, too. Then they started the year poorly and alienated their only reliable goalscorer by stripping him of the captaincy.
Perhaps that was even the right thing to do. Certainly, it was not ideal for Mauro Icardi’s wife and agent, Wanda, to be taking digs at teammates on TV chat shows. Then again, it was not exactly desirable for him to write an autobiography three years ago in which he triumphantly recalled threatening to bring criminals over from Argentina to murder fans who criticised him, either, and he did not lose the armband then.
Icardi is expected to leave, as Antonio Conte builds a team in his image. Milan already offloaded their own ill-fitting Argentinian striker in January. Gonzalo Higuaín was supposed to fire the Rossoneri into the Champions League. Instead his brief loan stay will be remembered for a penalty miss, red card and meltdown against parent club Juventus.
Krzysztof Piątek fared better, though his goals dried up, too, after an astonishing start in Serie A. He joined Genoa from CS Cracovia for €4.5m last June, and was sold to Milan for almost eight times that sum half a year later. An astonishing piece of business, and also one that very nearly backfired, as the Rossoblu slid to 17th without him. They avoided relegation only thanks to a head-to-head tie-breaker over Empoli.
It was sad to see the Tuscans go: a team that always sought to attack under Aurelio Andreazzoli. Perhaps, if he had not been briefly replaced by Beppe Iachini in the middle of the season, Empoli might have survived, even with the smallest wage bill in the division.
Many wealthier clubs delivered less bang for their buck. Fiorentina finished just three points above the relegation zone after an extraordinary collapse. Roma, too, were a disappointment, if not quite on the same scale. Monchi and Eusebio Di Francesco were gone by the middle of March. Now Daniele De Rossi’s journey with his boyhood club has come to an end as well.
There were more positive seasons for Lazio, Coppa Italia winners, and Torino, who challenged strongly for a European place, as well as Spal and Sassuolo. Bologna had some of the best results in the league after hiring Sinisa Mihajlovic as manager in January. Parma followed up three consecutive promotions by consolidating their top-flight place.
Napoli cruised to second almost as comfortably as Juventus took first. Carlo Ancelotti deserves credit for evolving the team left by Maurizio Sarri, and making better use of his squad’s depth, without slipping down the table – even if the points tally was diminished.
This will be another Serie A season, however, remembered for ugly events off the pitch as well. Kalidou Koulibaly was racially abused during Napoli’s defeat at Inter. Moise Kean, a joyful late-season revelation for Juventus, was likewise targeted during a match at Cagliari.
The limp reaction of the authorities – who took no action against the Sardinian club – was dispiriting. But the response of Kean’s own team-mate Leonardo Bonucci, who suggested that blame “should be split 50-50” between the teenager and his abusers, was arguably worse.
Ronaldo found himself at the centre of a grim story in October, when Las Vegas police confirmed that they were re-opening investigations into a rape accusation made against him in 2009. The player denied the charge and there are conflicting reports about whether the case has been dropped. But Juventus’s response, issuing a pair of tweets that highlighted his professionalism together with the length of time since the alleged incident, was nevertheless horribly misjudged.
These stories cannot be swept aside, yet it is right to celebrate the highs of the season as well. So without further ado, here are your 2019 awards …
Goal of the season
6) Between injuries, car trouble and a habit for showing up late to training, Radja Nainggolan’s first year at Inter was mostly a disappointment. But he did still score one absolute gem against Juventus.
5) Piatek did not need to look at the goal to know where it was as he ran on
The Guardian Sport
