last few decades. In the 1990s, Serie A dominated world soccer; the consensus was that they had the best league in the world, and most of the best players too. I recall seeing rankings that had 6 or 7 Italian teams in the Top 25 globally. Teams like Fiorentina, Parma, Udinese, Sampdoria, Napoli, and the Roman clubs were serious players back then, in addition to the usual suspects (AC Milan, Juve, Inter).

Now, the league has clearly drifted way behind Spain and England, and behind Germany too — it’s #4 of the “Big 4,” and France seems to be catching up somewhat. The official UEFA country coefficients have them in 4th place at the moment; it’s put them in the Top 3 only once in the last 5 years, and dropped them to #5 one of those years. This would have been unthinkable 20 years ago.

1 Spain 89.283
2 England 77.605
3 Germany. 61.212
4 Italy 60.225
5 France 51.748