With Mario Balotelli and Antonio Conte gone, Serie A looks a bit calmer

Juventus and Roma, writes Ian Hawkey, could retain the edge over old heavyweights Inter and Milan in a vibrant joust for supremacy.

Rudi Garcia, centre, and his Roma team did a good job at the start of the last season. Getty Images

Serie A suddenly looks a great deal calmer as it prepares for the 2014/15 season.

That, at least, is one result of the exit from its stage of two individuals who have been a natural focus point for cameramen and TV producers. Antonio Conte, touchline whirligig and inspirer of champions, is no longer the coach of Juventus, nor of any club in the division.

Mario Balotelli, supreme striker on his day, incorrigible attention-seeker on his off-days, has left AC Milan, and Italy’s domestic theatre.

In the wider context of Italian club football’s alarming talent drain, both departures are cause for regret, although Conte will still be around, in his new capacity as national-team manager.

In terms of stimulating the championship, their search for fresh challenges may turn out to be a good thing.

Conte built a Juventus whose pre-eminence threatened to dull the suspense of the Serie A title-race, what with their three successive titles and a knack for putting together indomitable sequences of domestic form.

The league needs a strong standard bearer in an era of financial insecurity and lowering self-esteem, but it might also be buoyed by a more vibrant, closer joust for supremacy.

And the possibility of an altered Juventus at least invites a clutch of other clubs to view Serie A as genuinely more open than it has been for nearly a decade.

Not since 2001 has a club outside the cities of Milan or Turin won its title.

Given that AC Milan, champions in 2004 and 2011, just endured their worst domestic campaign this century, and Inter Milan finished last term 18 points off third place and 42 behind Juventus, the conclusion must be that even if this is a flawed league, it might be turning into a more competitive one.

Some of Serie A’s flaws were ruthlessly exposed by Roma between last August and December. Their 30 points from the first 10 matches of the campaign rattled a noisy sabre at Juventus, while ripping through the defences of others.

Alas, for Roma fans and many neutrals, it would not last. But it was still great credit to the coach, Rudi Garcia, who had never before worked outside his native France.

Although Roma were undoubtedly helped by the fact they had no midweek European commitments, they gave the league’s landscape a new relief.

Their ambitions to go higher this time, while competing in the Champions League, have been underscored by their transfer activity.

Read: Five players to watch in Serie A this season

There has been an emphasis on the best sort of know-how: high-calibre experience in the form of Ashley Cole, signed free from Chelsea, and Seydou Keita, out of a contract after a stint at Valencia.

These are veterans who know how to close out a win, or hold onto a draw, in the toughest of circumstances.

That is not to say Garcia wants to lose the verve that characterised Roma in their best periods of his debut campaign.

The signing of Juan Iturbe, the Argentine striker, for what by modern Serie A standards is an eye-catching fee, indicates Garcia puts a premium on speed with ball.

It cost the side €22 million (Dh106.4m) for a player who just turned 21, and is being paid chiefly on the basis of one impressive season with Verona.

Still, the notion of Iturbe attacking one flank and Gervinho, the Ivorian, the other, is appealing. Add another effective campaign from the evergreen Francesco Totti and the imaginative supply of passes from Mirolem Pjanic, and Roma should again be watchable in attack.

In central defence, they lost Mehdi Benatia to Bayern Munich, but with Davide Astori and Kostas Manolas coming in, there is cover for his position.

Kevin Strootman, the Dutch midfielder whose long-term injury in February damaged Roma’s title prospects, should return to action in October.

Napoli, disappointed to be out of the Champions League, finished third last season and should consolidate on that. Depth is still a concern to coach Rafa Benitez, however, since Napoli tend to fade when Marek Hamsik is out of form or fitness.

A high-class finisher to accompany or relieve Ginzalo Higuain also seemed a priority. It remains to be seen if Michu, signed from Swansea City, becomes that figure.

Fiorentina, enterprising and upwardly mobile under Vicenzo Montella, fell tantalising short of big targets four months ago, just off third place in Serie A, and beaten by Napoli in the Coppa Italia final.

Montella will be concerned that he keeps his core players beyond the close of the transfer window, next week, and that his strike force stay fitter than they did in 2013/14.

“Giuseppe Rossi and Mario Gomez can develop a real understanding,” he said of the Germany and Italy international strikers.

Montella is gaining as much admiration from elsewhere as anybody dressed in a Fiorentina kit. He leads a group of young Italian coaches for whom the season ahead will be defining.

Andrea Stramaccioni, tipped for greatness when he took over at Inter Milan at age 36 two years ago, is back as a senior coach, at Udinese.

Pippo Inzaghi, like Montella, is a former Italian international striker. He has taken charge of uplifting Milan.

Inzaghi, 41, may appreciate the fact that Balotelli’s distracting presence is no longer part of Milanello life, but he can hardly be assured that Super Mario’s quality has been replaced.

Inter and Juventus, meanwhile, have experienced Italians on the bench. Walter Mazzarri is obliged to end up with a higher placing in his second season in charge than his fourth. Given the arrivals of the grizzled Nemanja Vidic, Gary “Pitbull” Medel and the powerful Yann Mvila, he anticipates a more rugged, resistant Inter.

At Juventus, Max Allegri – sacked at Milan last December –takes over from Conte as further proof that historic rivalries between them can be easily overlooked in the name of expediency.

Allegri has a hard act to follow in the bench, but he commands the best-equipped squad in the division. Juventus may no longer have their figurehead coach in charge, but they have acquired good habits, and will not give the title up easily.

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