Article by Tudor Belivacă – Published Friday, February 27, 2026, 9:08 p.m. / Updated Friday, February 27, 2026, 9:08 p.m.
Alessandro Del Piero (51 years old), former legendary player in Italian football, complained about the unfortunate situation of Italian teams in European cups. The current season has been a real disaster for Serie A teams in European competitions. Atalanta, the most surprising name, remained the only Italian representative in Italian football.
Following the embarrassing eliminations from the Champions League, debates about the quality and level of Italian football have intensified. Even Del Piero was not far from the discussion after Juventus, the team where he wrote history, was eliminated by Galatasaray, and Inter by Bodo/Glimt. Napoli, the reigning champions of Serie A, did not even get out of the groups of the competition.
Alessandro Del Piero, shocked by the level of Italian football: “The level of investment is very low”
“Can I cry? It's a very difficult situation. It's the result of what happened in Italy in recent years. “The level of investment is very low. Other markets have become much, much bigger than ours,” Alessandro Del Piero said, according to abola.pt.
According to Transfermarkt, Serie A is not so bad for investment, but it is light years away from the Premier League. As a benchmark we can refer to the data from the summer mercato window, before the start of the 2025-2026 season. AC Milan invested 164 million euros, Juventus 137 million euros, and Atalanta, the only representative of the Italians in the Champions League, took out about 130 million euros. The Top 5 was completed by Naples (115 million euros) and Como (107 million euros). Inter does not make the top 5 with 92.7 million euros invested in the summer. By comparison, reigning Premier League champions Liverpool spent €145 million on just one player: Alexander Isak. Surely Del Piero also referred to investments in youth football.
But the problem is not only in the Champions League. In the UEFA Europa League, Roma and Bologna will meet in the round of 16, so another team will be eliminated. In the Conference League, Fiorentina came close to elimination in the play-offs at the hands of Polish Jagiellonia, but went through extra time. The task of Atalanta, who eliminated Dortmund with a penalty in the last minute, is also difficult in the last 16 of the Champions League: they will play Bayern.
