Gazzetta Dello Sport recently released a 30-disc celebration of “the most beautiful championship in the world”. Campionato Io Ti Amo celebrates Italian football from 1978 to the current day with a disc for each season charting a somewhat poignant journey in Italian and European football.
Serie A opened the door to foreigners in 1980 and soon became the greatest league in the world. By the mid 1980s, almost every top footballer plied his trade in Italy. Indeed, it’s hard to imagine any league being as full of top-class stars as Serie A was. There was Diego Maradona at Napoli, Michel Platini at Juventus, Karl-Heinz Rummenigge at Inter, Zico at Udinese, Roberto Falcao at Roma, Boniek, Brady, Passarella, Socrates, Careca, Laudrup… the list goes on and on. Imagine Messi, Kaka, Cristiano Ronaldo, and Ronaldinho playing in the same league every week – and you’re only half-way there.
That’s because the Italian league was also the most defensive in world football manned by world champions like Gentile, Scirea, Bergomi, and Baresi rather than your Titus Brambles or Jean-Alain Boumsongs. Any goal was a triumph. Therefore, when one was netted, it was rarely the result of suspect defending and more likely the progeny of brilliant inspiration. Essentially, only the best foreigners were signed – Luther Blisset being the exception that proved the rule.
The 1985/86 edition captures Serie A at its peak. Platini wins his last scudetto, Rummenigge has the most injury-free season of his three-year Italian sojourn, and Maradona emerges as the all-conquering icon that will dazzle the planet in Mexico.
The footage is taken from RAI’s coverage of the time and, naturally, is presented in Italian. Running time is 75 minutes for the main programme with bonus extras taking the whole package near to 100. As a reminder of times gone by – and of what Serie A used to be like (simultaneous afternoon kick-offs, 0-0 draws punctuated by brilliance, Diadora footballs, the Turin Communale…), this is hard to beat.
