Italy's South has not only had to suffer through more than a century of grave economic disadvantage, but ridiculing name calling from the North, and the ultimate of embarrassments, lousy soccer teams.:)

[Italy has the Champions League, the top level, then a step down to Series A, then another step down to Series B.]

The national sport had merely followed the hard law of economics, with clubs from cities where unemployment can touch 30 per cent outmuscled by teams from the industrial regions.

Three years ago, Serie A lost a trio of southern clubs and Lecce, from the stiletto heel of the country, only avoided going down with them on the last day. The national sport had merely followed the hard law of economics, with clubs from cities where unemployment can touch 30 per cent outmuscled by teams from the industrial regions.

But, the transformation has been dramatic.

This season, with Messina beating Milan, the champions, and then Reggina, defeating “unbeatable” Juventus, now, half the European places in Serie A are occupied by islanders.

Cagliari of Sardinia were fourth, Palermo fifth, Messina sixth. Like the other islanders, Cagliari were a Serie B team until May.

Clubs who, at the turn of the millennium, would expect to be challenging the traditional rights of Juventus, Milan and Internazionale have defaulted on huge mortgages. Lazio have been left with barely a spare set of shirts by the bailiffs.
Roma are also in a mess made of their own excess borrowing. Ditto Parma.

So it is that now the Southern teams are thinking the unthinkable, of displacing some of those snooty Northern teams from the Champions League.

And it is stifling the smug ridicule. How the mighty are being humbled.;)

Decades of dominance by rich northerners are under threat as much-maligned southern clubs continue to grow strong in Serie A

London Times Online
Ian Hawkey
European Football Correspondent
December 05, 2004

Late on Friday, a few hundred Sicilians, dressed in yellow and red, took a ferry over the Messina straights and boarded a train for a 13-hour trip that shortly before dawn would cross one of Europe’s most distinct unofficial borders. It’s the line that divides north and south Italy, a frontier some from the privileged side think might as well divide different centuries.

The travelling fans were on their way to Milan for last night’s game against Internazionale, where they’d have expected the standard (derogatory) serenades for any football visitor from anywhere beneath Rome: smugglers, gypsies or terroni, a catch-all term for folk from the south.

Being from Sicily, they’d hardly be surprised to hear somebody shout, mafiosi. At the start of the season, Italy’s Serie A was hearing all these terms more than usual; three months in, there’s a growing impression the novelty is wearing off.

The south is mobilising Italy’s top division and enjoying "cocking a snook" at the game’s governors. It started with little cameos. When Messina’s loyalists last took their trains all the way up to San Siro in September, they returned with all three points at the expense of Milan, the champions. Then Reggina, from the worn toe of the Italian peninsula, defeated “unbeatable” Juventus.

It is now December, and the upstarts are still making news. Nobody in Italy is playing football more committed to attack and entertainment than Lecce, from the stiletto heel of the country, and, going into the weekend, half the European places in Serie A were occupied by islanders. Messina were sixth, Palermo immediately above them and Cagliari of Sardinia, captained by one Gianfranco Zola, 38 years young, were fourth. Like the other islanders, Cagliari were a Serie B team until May.

The transformation is dramatic. Three years ago, Serie A lost a trio of southern clubs and Lecce only avoided going down with them on the last day. The national sport had merely followed the hard law of economics, with clubs from cities where unemployment can touch 30 per cent outmuscled by teams from the industrial regions. Adriano Galliani, league president, even suggested that, in what he called a “two-speed Italy”, football needed to compensate, and proposed that Series A and B consider imposing a quota of southern clubs.

Lecce, Messina, Palermo and Cagliari are very happy now to say grazie for the idea, but they don’t need to be patronised.

“Throughout history we have been underestimated,” says Zola of his native Sardinia. “We are far from the centres of power and we have been penalised for that. Life isn’t easy here. There are no big industries and people have always worked hard. We want to prove we are capable of great things.”

How great? “I was reading the papers after we beat Lazio in Rome on Sunday,” says Zola, whose goal in a 3-2 victory elevated Cagliari to fourth. “People were talking about going into the Champions League. It’s right to hope, but we shouldn’t get ahead of ourselves.”

Messina’s president, Pietro Franza, a dapper 36-year-old in the hotel and shipping business, echoes Zola: “It’s a fact that it’s much more difficult for us. The people who run the league are all from the north. There’s much less money in the south, much less investment, and you have to work harder for it. That’s been reflected in the football, though that’s changing.”

Why now? “For too long the southern clubs have been left out,” says Bortolo Mutti, the Messina head coach, once of Palermo and, indeed, of Napoli, the south’s most celebrated club now marooned in the third division. “We want to be a third force in Italian football.”

The first two would be the cities of Milan and Turin. For the rest, the theory goes, there’s a power vacuum. Clubs who, at the turn of the millennium, would expect to be challenging the traditional rights of Juventus, Milan and Internazionale have defaulted on huge mortgages. Lazio have been left with barely a spare set of shirts by the bailiffs. Roma are also in a mess made of their own excess borrowing. Ditto Parma.

Over the past eight days, with Italy analysing the verdict returned in the long-running trial investigating Juventus’s alleged doping in the 1990s, the more outspoken comments have come from Zola, while Lecce coach Zdenek Zeman, has resisted saying, ‘Told you so’. It was he who in 1998 first urged Italian football “to get out of the pharmacy”.

Could a southerner win the scudetto for the first time since Napoli in 1990? It would be a rousing tale, but it won’t happen this season. Juventus, top of Serie A, already hold a 13-point advantage over Cagliari; only Milan look within challenging distance. Still, the European places are within grasp.

“We’re all hungry,” says Messina’s Franza. “You know, we are now getting the seventh highest attendances in Serie A.”

This at a club that in the 1990s gave up their professional status because of debt. Messina have barely changed the personnel who won promotion to an enlarged Serie A, an expansion caused after another Sicilian club, Catania, disputed the finishing positions in the 2002-03 Serie B season. Messina effectively took one of the extra places in a top-flight grown from 18 to 20 teams, and moved into a new stadium which last month hosted the national team for the first time.

Alessandro Parisi, a defender Sicilian born and bred, made the Azzurri squad. Although good, he’s unlikely to have the impact of the most celebrated son of Messina. His name was Salvatore Schillaci. He joined Juventus, became leading scorer at the Italian World Cup in 1990, and then faded. Fans used to shout mafioso at Schillaci, too, and, infamously, he could play Corleone when it got to him. One opponent, Bologna’s Fabio Poli, felt genuinely unnerved when Schillaci rounded on him after being fouled and said: “I’m going to have you killed. Understand? I will have you shot.”

Sicilians are fed up with the mafia association being made by people who should know better. Like Jose Mourinho, the coach of Chelsea, to whom a loose remark about “needing bodyguards in Palermo” was attributed last week. Mourinho was making a point about his enemies in Porto, but unleashed the full ire of Sicilian football. Maurizio Zamparini, the Palermo president, said: “It’s time people stopped referring to stereotypes based on ignorance and prejudice.”

The Palermo midfield player, Eugenio Corini, had a more earthy response: “I didn’t like Mourinho anyway, but now we want to get that Champions League place so we can beat him on the pitch.”

Zola would like that Champions League place, too and a dream meeting between Cagliari with Chelsea, though for more romantic reasons: “Footballers are there to make dreams happen and there’s no doubt we’re doing something exceptional here. I’m not saying we can’t carry on, but we need to be realistic.”

Italy's beautiful south
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