Milan had come to fail. Despondency was close to the surface and bound to overwhelm the side as soon as Manchester United scored. The visitors were diligent enough, but they could not fend off a weariness of soul and body in the 4‑0 loss. Too much has rested on them for too long.

In the past six seasons Milan have won the European Cup, lost a final, gone out in the semi-finals and featured in the last 16. They have done everything feasible to shore up the standing of Italian football. There are too many veterans in Leonardo's squad, but even hyperactive youths would have buckled under that workload.

The situation is strange since Serie A once understood the nature of modern football when other countries, including England, had a provincial attitude. The cosmopolitan outlook is long‑established in Italy. When Marco van Basten was followed to San Siro in the late 80s by Frank Rijkaard and Ruud Gullit, elder Milan fans had the excuse to reminisce about "Gre-No-Li", the Swedish trio of Gunnar Gren, Gunnar Nordahl and Nils Liedholm who had such impact three decades before.

Italy has been so eclectic in its football tastes that the Argentinian-born Julio Libonatti was top scorer as long ago as 1928. Torino had reached across the Atlantic to pluck him from Newell's Old Boys. At present Serie A has mislaid its knack for securing outstanding players at the very peak of their powers. With Italy as World Cup-holders the domestic talent is undeniable, but some are on the wane. Alessandro Nesta played shakily against United in the first leg and the defender was not fit to take part in the return.

It would still be nonsensical to claim that all Italian clubs are in decline. Fiorentina might well have gone through to the quarter-finals of the Champions League had they not seen an invalid goal outrageously allowed in the away leg of a hard-fought tie with Bayern Munich. Their coach Cesare Prandelli has the status to be considered a possible replacement for Manuel Pellegrini, who is in grave danger following the vote of confidence at Real Madrid.

Elsewhere in Italy Internazionale are improving, with a broader range to their play now that José Mourinho has employed the funds raised by selling Zlatan Ibrahimovic to bring in Wesley Sneijder and others. The 2-1 defeat of Chelsea was surely the match of the season to date and it is far from impossible that the Premier League club will be eliminated when Mourinho comes back to his old club next week.

Serie A is very far from extinction, but it does have a range of difficulties. Some are found on a highly individual level. Now that he is prime minister of the country Silvio Berlusconi seems like a man who can always find a moment to interfere in team selection, but is far too busy actually to lead Milan. A group left to grow old together personifies perfectly the lack of strategy.

The strength leaks out of Serie A in other ways as well. Even if Italian fans were never naive in the first-place, the match-fixing scandals have been demoralising. Any country can run into trouble with hooliganism, but it is still unsettling to hear of Juventus fans setting fire to seats inside the Stadio Olimpico

The club moved out of the charmless Stadio delle Alpi in 2006 but intend to build a new ground on that site. Its capacity would be a fairly modest 41,000. That reflects the shrinkage in Serie A. While the Premier League has exploited the advantage of the widely understood English language to market its games globally, the Italians have not been able to turn their own matches into international television events.

Income is affected, too, by ticket prices that are low by comparison with those endured here. It then becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy that Serie A will be affected by a lack of glamour. With Kaká gone to Real Madrid, Milan must do what they can to make Ronaldinho seem charismatic once more, even if his main ambition is somehow to persuade Dunga that he has reformed sufficiently to be worth a place in Brazil's plans. Klaas-Jan Huntelaar, a more recent signing, has been an expensive source of dismay.

These are awkward days and Serie A badly needs club owners of imagination and enterprise. Nonetheless, Chelsea will have to take care that Mourinho does not single-handedly rehabilitate Italian club football next week.