22 Consecutive Years In Serie A May Just Be Coming To An End For Udinese

22 Consecutive Years In Serie A May Just Be Coming To An End For Udinese
15:37, 03 Sep 2017

Luca Rizzo’s last-minute penalty was as beautiful for SPAL as it was telling for Udinese. The dramatic 3-2 win was also the Zebrette’s second defeat on the bounce and despite the season being young, the questions were being asked. Would this be the first time in 22 years, that the side, once so prided on its evolution, would tumble into Serie B? This was a club; whose scouting model was at one time the envy of Serie A but now they look forgotten by the owners and that even in this early stage they look trouble.

The ‘Udinese model’ was idealistic yet successful and ultimately (and arguably) only flawed by the owners change of focus. The Pozzo family have had interests in clubs in other regions, Granada in Spain and Watford in England. The Premier league money has shifted their focus it is true and it is to the detriment to the Zebrette but if it had not then they may not be in the situation they now find themselves.

It was almost perfect, Serie A’s most innovative and forward thinking under dogs had just managed to renovate the Stadio Friuli into the modern and impressive Dacia Stadium.  This wasn’t an Ikea flat packed style Premier League stadium, this was Bundesliga with character. They had an identity that emboldened them to take on the main players in Serie A despite not having a large support base nor the resources to realistically jostle with the main players in Milan, Turin and Rome.

Udine after all, is a small city on the Slovenian-Italian border and it is fair to say that unlike Naples or Roma, few foreigners have trodden on the Piazza della Liberta, in fact they only boast 100,000 inhabitants in this idyllic back drop. It is not the most obvious place for a football club and to stand out they needed to be different. Enter stage left, Giampaolo Pozzo. The head of a successful tool making empire, he acquired the club in 1986 after the team had been relegated to Serie B due to a betting scandal. 

The plan that they came up with was simple but difficult. The aim was to become a sustainable and profitable club that could compete on the boundaries of Europe. Unlike the RedBull trio or the Manchester City, New York, Melbourne clubs, the idea was not to be a brand but a genuine team that the locals could identify with. The irony of this however, was that to do this they need to employ a vast scouting network across the globe that would be quicker, smarter and more aggressive than any in Europe, giving them the ability to buy low and sell high. It worked.

Simple in theory, complex in operation, this is the Pozzo methodology. How well did it work? Here you go. Samir Handanovic, Antonio Di Natale, Juan Cuadrado, Gokhan Inler, David Pizzaro, Mehdi Benatia, Luis Muriel, Kwadwo Asamoah, Sulley Muntari, Cristian Zapata and some kid called Alexis Sanchez? These are but a few. They were the ‘happy feeder club’ the busiest market town in Italy and they loved it. It was the solution sell in its purest form, you need a midfielder? Here is Gaetano D’Agostino, now call our scouts in Argentina, order a better more technical one. They provided European clubs with an easy option for well over a decade. Don’t bother scouting over there just spend more and buy from Udine, yes, they add their commission but they have earned it.

Gabriele Marcotti described it best in the Wall Street Journal in 2015 “For a club whose revenues, excluding player trading, were a paltry $54m in 2013/14 the most recent season has been a tremendous result. Exclude player trading and Udinese, between 2009 to 2014, made losses of $111m, include it and the red ink turns profit of over $26m.” That is the extent of the genius behind this plan.

So, what happened? Two defeats in two games is no huge issue perhaps, even it if is to Chievo and SPAL but is not the end of the world, right? Perhaps this time it is, the Pozzo family who for years worked in the idea that these marginal gains brought success that could be invested back inti the club soon saw them look beyond little Udine. The money of the Premier League and investment in Watford saw them become the Pozzo flagship and the Zebrette seemingly look forgotten. When Di Natale said farewell, it was almost perfect timing for shutting the doors on the Stadio Friuli and simply admitting that it had been fun but it was now over. The scouting, the investment the focus has now shifted.

No more was this evident than in the last transfer window. When Rizzo’s penalty hit the back of the next the two main reasons Udinese still had a chance of staying up lay with goalkeeper Orestis Kranezis and striker Cyril Thereau. By the time the window closed they were gone to Watford (surprisingly) and Fiorentina. Simone Scuffet is an able replacement (that’s another story) but Maxi Lopez isn’t scouting, it’s simply folly.

With focus shifted Udine Foreign Legion looks unarmed and forgotten. There are no more Oliver Bierhoff’s these days. The Udinese model was unconventional yet it was genius, it was idealistic in terms of modern football but it worked as it too was about profit but yet it felt wholesome. Udinese may have been a willing feeder club to the world but to be one for Watford? 22 consecutive years in Serie A may just be coming to an end, European clubs, you need to go and employ scouts now.

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