Italian footballer Antonio Cassano has described the Italian Serie A as being mediocre and said the league table toppers, Inter Milan, don’t play well. He went on to describe the performance of the Italian giants in the UEFA Champions League this season as ridiculous.
Antonio Cassano has played for some of the biggest clubs in Europe, including Real Madrid, Inter Milan, and AC Milan. The 38-year-old retired forward scored about 7 goals in his short spell at Inter Milan before he left the club in 2013 to join Parma.
Despite spending just a season at Inter Milan, Cassano is one of the former members of the club who is not happy that the club was stunned out of the 2020-2021 Champions League campaign despite being the strongest Serie A title contenders.
However, Inter Milan’s poor form in the Champions League was different from the form the club has been enjoying in Serie A. So far this season, coach Antonio Conte and his boys have enjoyed 17 victories in the league, five draws, and two defeats.
Inter Milan’s performance has taken them to the top of the league table with 56 points in 24 league games, 4 points above second-placed AC Milan, and 10 points above 3rd placed Juventus.
Based on the performance of the club in the league so far this season, Antonio Conte told the press after the club’s 3-0 win over Genoa on Sunday, February 28, that: “If we had been in the Champions League right now, I think we could’ve had our say in that tournament”.
This insertion infuriated Antonio Cassano who wondered whether Conte thought he was a Pep Guardiola (the current coach of Manchester City). He stressed that Inter Milan play defensively and always wait for the opponents to lose the ball before they make a long pass to the club’s striker, Romelu Lukaku.
“Did Conte understand he is not Guardiola? Have his say in the Champions League? Come on. I am not dumb. Serie A is mediocre, Europe is something else. Inter are not dominating,” Antonio Cassano told Bobo TV on Twitch.
“They’ve been playing differently with Eriksen, they seem more solid, but they don’t play great football. Atalanta do.
“Inter sit deep and wait for their opponents’ move, then they try to reach Lukaku with long balls.
“Inter must win the title. They are going to win it. But they don’t play well.
“If Conte made serious mistakes, it’s only his fault. Inter were ridiculous in the Champions League. They finished behind Shakhtar.”
No Serie A side has made it to the final of the UEFA Champions League after the 2009-2010 season which was the last time Inter Milan won the prestigious tournament. Since then, the final of the tournament has been all about Spanish clubs, Premier League clubs, and Bundesliga’s Bayern Munich.
However, the Serie A clubs have proven not to be mediocre in this season’s UEFA Champions League campaign because the league still have three representatives left in the round of 16 stage of the tournament.
The Serie A – Juventus, Lazio, and Atalanta; English Premier League – Chelsea, Liverpool, and Manchester United, have three clubs left in this season’s UEFA Champions League knock-out stage.
While Bundesliga – Borussia Dortmund, Borussia Mönchengladbach, RB Leipzig, and Bayern Munich; and the Spanish La Liga – Sevilla, Atletico Madrid, Barcelona, and Real Madrid, still have four clubs left in the competition.
The French Ligue 1 – Paris Saint Germain, and the Portuguese league – Porto, make up the number of clubs left in the tournament’s last 16.
