The lack of appreciation from Italian teams towards the European League is pretty much becoming a fact lately especially after seeing the likes of Sampdoria and Juventus are finally out of the competition.

The Blucerchiati that needed a victory on their match last Wednesday against PSV Eindhoven suffered a 2-1 defeat in Luigi Ferraris, while the Bianconeri also shared the same fate with Sampd as they were held in a 1-1 draw albeit needing a win the secure qualification.

Dutch Comeback Breaks Sampdoria’s Heart

At Luigi Ferraris, Arriving into the match with a positive result after getting a draw against Ac Milan in the league last weekend, Samdoria started the half in a commanding fashion as they created several goal scoring opportunities, especially through Guido Marilungo. After series of wasted chances, the home team did finally get the goal the pretty much deserved in the first period as Giampaolo Pazzini nod home a wonderful header from Reto Ziegler’s cross.

However, Sampdoria’s slender lead in the first half didn’t last long in the second half as PSV managed to equalize just few minutes after the re-start from Ola Toivonen’s diving header. Taking pretty they’re only real chance in the game give the upper hand to the Dutch side that only needed a draw to get through, while the home team started to pour forward in search of the winning goal.

With results from another game from the group ensuring that the Blucerchiati had no other option than a win, the home team’s players seemed heavily pressured resulting in their frustration as they keep on wasting chances. The effect of the pressure is visible as in the last minute Sampdoria are forced to play with 10 men after loosing Marilungo, who got a second yellow card. Shortly after the dismissal, things gets even worse for the Genoa based side after PSV scored their second goal through Toivonen.

Freezing Temperature Holds Juve’s Progress

A nearly similar thing also happened for Italian giant, Juventus, as they are finding everything tough at Poland where they are forced to face Lech Poznan in a freezing sub zero temperature at Poland. The condition surely suits the home team more as the Italian side also needs to be careful with the icy pitch as they already lost some players because of injury.

Having all of the advantages on their side, it took only 11 minutes for the home team to score against the Italian and it was no one other than Rudnevs who once again strike the blow for Juve after already hitting a hattrick in Turin. Needing a victory to seal their path, the Bianconeri tried every effort possible to get the equalizer but the difficult condition doesn’t seemed to help them at all as the first half ended with the Poles leading 1-0.

The second half starts with the same pattern as most of the first period as Juve piling up the pressure, while the home team are content by playing the counter attack. After missing series of good goal scoring chances, the away team finally managed to get the equalizer through Vincenzo Iaquinta with just six minutes left from the 90. Despite creating few more chances after the equalizer, the away team failed to get the winning goal they’re looking for and have to accept their exit from the European competition.

Despite of a rather unlucky circumstances that both Sampdoria and Juventus had in their decisive group games, still their lack of concern for the competition is pretty much believed as they caused of their exit in the competition. It’s pretty much known that big clubs doesn’t really rate the competition highly especially for a side like Juventus that is looking to play in a bigger stage like Champions League. However, this kinda of attitude that most Italian teams had in the Europa league could pretty much become the key factor that will make the Serie A lost their point coefficient which is important in getting four teams into the Champions League zone.

So should Italy lost their fourth seat in the Champions League, instead of blaming everything on the likes of As Roma, Inter Milan and Ac Milan that are fighting pretty well in the Champions League this season, the same responsibility could be handed to teams that are playing in the Europa League. The fact that in the past, Germans clubs have actually been getting points after doing well in that second class competition in Europe, the same attitude should be done by Serie A teams if they want to keep their prestige in European football.

photo credit: mitsurinho