“Le Sette Sorelle”. The Seven Sisters – an era between the mid 90s and the Calciopoli match-fixing scandal of 2006 – in which Juventus, Milan and Inter, Roma and Lazio, Parma and Fiorentina were all battling it out for the Scudetto and European honours. The grounds were packed, the squads littered with the world’s best players.

When they hosted Italia 90, there was every reason to feel that Italy was the undisputed centre of the footballing universe. The best players – Diego Maradona of Napoli, Marco van Basten of Milan, Lothar Matthäus of Internazionale, Roberto Baggio of Fiorentina – illuminated Serie A. They were paid better than players anywhere else. Their lives appeared more glamorous than anyone else’s. A dozen stadiums were remodelled and renovated to host Italia 90 and the facilities were regarded at the time as top notch.

The 1990s were exciting times. The world’s best strikers – Ronaldo, Gabriel Batistuta, George Weah, Hernan Crespo, Christian Vieri, Alessandro Del Piero and Marcelo Salas – took on the best defenders: Franco Baresi, Alessandro Nesta, Paolo Maldini, Giuseppe Bergomi, Lilian Thuram and Fabio Cannavaro. Artists in midfield like Manuel Rui Costa, Juan Sebastien Veron and Zinedine Zidane painted with their feet.

Whereas now it is the norm for the world’s best players to head for La Liga, and not so long ago you could argue they would head for the Premier League, it used to be that in order to be rubber-stamped as a great player you had to test yourself in Serie A. Of those who were awarded the Ballon d’Or between 1980 and 2007, all but two – Igor Belanov and Michael Owen – had played, would play or were playing in Italy.

It was also the most competitive league the world has ever seen. In the two decades between 1983 and 2003, Serie A clubs made the European Cup/Champions League final 13 times. Six lifted the trophy, seven were runners’ up. In the decade between 1989 and 1999, its representatives reached the UEFA Cup final on all but one occasion – four of which were all-Italian affairs – taking the trophy home eight times.

English fans of Serie A got their fix through Football Italia on Channel 4 between 1992-2002, presented by the marvellous James Richardson. At the time the continent still carried its own mystique; it remained exotic, a little threatening, patently superior to the still maturing Premier League. There was no Twitter, no YouTube, just ones eyes and a small TV screen. For better or worse, everyone is an expert now.

PARMA 1997-1999

After a brief reprieve in 2013/2014 – finishing 6th but ineligible for European competition, Parma are back to the plight they have been experiencing for the last decade. Seven points adrift at the bottom of the league, their relegation has already been confirmed, and they will play in Serie B next season. 20 years ago – the outlook seemed so different.

In 1994-95, Parma had finished 10 points behind Marcello Lippi’s Juventus side in the league, but beat them in the UEFA Cup Final in the days when it was played over two legs. Dino Baggio scored in both games as Parma ran out 2-1 winners on aggregate.

They could not quite crack the league though. Despite having a strikeforce of Gianfranco Zola and Faustino Asprilla, they would only finish sixth in 1995-96. Carlo Ancelotti came in and the emergence of Gianluigi Buffon as well as the arrivals of Lilian Thuram, Enrico Chiesa and Hernan Crespo that summer helped Parma maintain a title bid that ultimately ended in frustration, missing out by two points – again to Juventus.

The spending continued. In came the Argentinians, Juan Sebastián Verón and Ariel Ortega. A second Uefa Cup followed in 1999, obliterating Bordeaux 6-0 in the Quarter Final and cantering to a 3-0 victory over Robert Pires’ Marseille in the final. The final goal in that game is breathtaking – the run from Thuram, the pass from Veron, the dummy from Crespo and the finish from Chiesa – nigh on perfection. They are widely renowned as a team of mercurial talent, seen in this 4-0 hammering of AC Milan, that unfortunately broke up too soon – failing to ever fulfil their potential.

It was unsustainable and by the turn of the century, the exodus had begun. In the space of a couple of years, Parma lost Buffon, Cannavaro, Thuram, Crespo, Baggio, Ortega and Verón, and in 2004 the club was declared insolvent after Parmalat went bankrupt following fraud by Calisto Tanzi, who was sentenced to 18 years in jail. Parma’s glory years are a mere memory now.

AC MILAN 2003-2007

After his appointment in November 2001, Carlo Ancelotti took Milan to the 2003 Champions League final, where they defeated Juventus on penalties to win the club’s sixth European Cup. They would make the final again in 2005, infamously letting a 3 goal lead slip before losing on penalties to Liverpool. They would enact revenge in 2007, overcoming Liverpool 2-0 in the final thanks to a brace from Pippo Inzhaghi. The team had won the Scudetto in 2004, but it was in Europe where they excelled. It was a team built on vast experience and defensive solidarity. There was very little upheaval over the period. Dida, Nesta, Maldini, Pirlo, Seedorf and Gattuso started all three finals. Any tweaks to the squad were for the better. Kaka – a Brazilian wonderkid who would win the Ballon D’Or in 2007, coming in to replace the ageing Manuel Rui Costa and Rivaldo. Hernan Crespo was brought in to bolster the strikeforce and scored 6 goals in the 04/05 Champions League campaign including this special goal in the final. The turn, pass and finish are all sublime.

The last of the Seven Sisters to fall, Milan’s demise is in full flow, as they sit 10th in Serie A.

JUVENTUS 1995-2000

If AC Milan were the last of the Seven Sisters to fall, then Juventus have been the first to re-surface. They stand a realistic chance of making their first Champions League final since 2003, after beating Real Madrid 2-1 in the first leg of their semi final. Under Antonio Conte and now Massimo Allegri, they have won four successive Scudetto’s – led by the talismanic Carlos Tevez and boasting arguably the best midfield three in world football of Andrea Pirlo, Arturo Vidal and Paul Pogba.

But it was in the mid to late 90s where they were at the peak of their powers – reaching three consecutive Champions League finals, beating Ajax on penalties to lift the trophy in 1996. As well as their success in Europe, under Marcello Lippi they won the league in 1995, 1997 and 1998, and after a year’s absence, he returned with Gigi Buffon, David Trezeguet, Pavel Nedved and Lilian Thuram to win the league twice more in 2002 and 2003.

They were a true European powerhouse, with a glittering array of superstars. Here they are beating AC Milan 6-1 at the San Siro in 1997. In 1996 at the Stadio Delle Alpi, Sir Alex Ferguson’s Manchester United team received a pointed lesson in the gap in class that would have permanently scarred lesser teams. The game finished 1-0 thanks to an Alen Boksic goal in the first half, but there cannot have been many more one-sided encounters between two marquee names – wave after wave of attacks stretched the United defence to breaking point, the sheer intensity of the Juventus machine rendering the visitors utterly helpless and Eric Cantona an irrelevance. The golden boy of English football, Ryan Giggs, was removed at half-time, a defining moment that confirmed Serie A’s asphyxiating pre-eminence. United would get their revenge two years later thanks to one of the finest individual performances ever seen in the competition by Roy Keane.

The name Alessandro del Piero is synonymous with the Bianconeri, playing over 700 games and scoring 289 goals. Good enough to allow Roberto Baggio (who had scored 115 goals in 200 appearances for the club) to be sold in 1996, del Piero won 8 Serie A titles, 1 Champions League and 1 Coppa Italia in his time at the club, as well as the Serie B title in 2007 as he stayed with the club to help them recover from the enforced relegation the year previous.

FIORENTINA 1995-2000

If Juventus during the late 90s can be symbolised by one man, then so can Fiorentina. Diego Maradona once claimed that Gabriel Batistuta was the best striker that has ever graced the face of the earth. No greater praise can be heaped on the man known as “Batigol”, whose powerful play and deadly ability in the box made him feared throughout his career.

In 1991, when he signed from Boca Juniors, nobody could have foreseen the impact he would have on Italian football. In nine years in Florence, Batistuta received almost religious adulation from the Curva Fiesole. He is in the top 10 all-time leading goalscorers in Serie A history, having scored 168 goals in 269 games for Fiorentina. When he eventually left the club, he walked away with a Serie B medal, a Coppa Italia winner’s medal and a Super Coppa Italiana trinket. The nearest he got to the title was in the 1998-99 season, when Fiorentina looked destined to win the title before Batigol pulled a hamstring and they missed out to Milan. Last October, he was inducted into the Hall of Fame, where he broke down in tears, saying – “From the moment I arrived at Fiorentina I wanted a place in the history of the club – and now I can say I have succeeded.”

Fiorentina, as was the norm in Serie A at that time, had several top players in the 90s, including Batistuta, Brian Laudrip, Stefan Effenberg and the wonderfully gifted Manuel Rui Costa. They won the Coppa Italia in 1995 and 2001 but mainly struggled to compete with their national rivals, although they finished 3rd in 1999 to earn them qualification to the Champions League – beating both Arsenal and Manchester United in the competition the following year. Fiorentina were relegated at the end of the 2001–02 season and went into judicially controlled administration in June 2002. This form of bankruptcy meant that the club was refused a place in Serie B for the 2002–03 season, and as a result effectively ceased to exist (temporarily). Their recent resurgence under Vincenzo Montella has seen them back in the Champions League, led by Adrian Mutu and Luca Toni, and they have made the semi-final of this year’s Europa League.





SS LAZIO 1998-2001

Of all the Sisters, I would think that Lazio’s roster was the most impressive on paper. They were certainly my preferred choice on Championship Manager 99/00 – a formidable side once I had convinced Alexander Mostovoi to join my crusade from Celta Vigo.

With the likes of Siniša Mihajlović (free kick extraordinaire), Alessandro Nesta, Marcelo Salas and Pavel Nedvěd, and under the tutelage of Sven Goran Eriksson, Lazio completed a Scudetto and Coppa Italia double in 1999-2000, at a time when domestic competition was at its peak. Lazio had two more Coppa Italia triumphs in 1998 and 2004, as well as the last ever UEFA Cup Winners’ Cup in 1999.

They had been league runners-up in 1995, third in 1996, fourth in 1997, and then had lost the championship by just one point to Milan in 1999. The Lazio owner, Sergio Cragnotti, had poured time and money into the club and had seen his team fall just short. To rub salt into the wounds, the season’s underwhelming end was compounded by the sale of Christian Vieri. Vieri had been bought by Cragnotti for around £19m after an excellent year with Atlético Madrid and a 1998 World Cup in which he finished joint-second top scorer. As ever Vieri was unable to stay in the same place for more than one season, moving on following Lazio’s failed title charge, with Internazionale forking out around £30m, including Diego Simeone, for his signature. Cragnotti persevered regardless, spending big money on new players in an attempt to dull harsh recent memories of near misses. With tenacious defensive midfielder Simeone having already arrived, he was joined by Juan Sebastián Verón. Verón had played under Eriksson at Sampdoria and the playmaker would settle neatly into a midfield that already contained Pavel Nedved, Dejan Stankovic, Matías Almeyda and Sérgio Conceição. Eriksson would also see his striking options enhanced by the signing of ageing maverick Fabrizio Ravanelli and Simone Inzaghi, younger brother of Pippo.

With the squad reinforced Vieri’s absence was felt less. They started well, winning the European Super Cup, beating Manchester United 1-0 thanks to a Marcelo Salas volley. Lazio continued to plug away in the league (including this 4-4 classic with AC Milan) but defeat to Verona left them nine points behind Carlo Ancelotti’s Juventus entering late March. Two points behind going into the last game of the season, Juventus inexplicably lost 1-0 at Perugia and Lazio, having overcome Reggina 3-0, were league champions for only the 2nd time in their history.

Cragnotti had repeatedly broken transfer records in pursuit of the worlds best players – Juan Sebastian Veron for £18million, Christian Vieri for £19million and breaking the world transfer record to sign Hernan Crespo from Parma for £35million. Before long, the ramifications of Cragnotti’s spending would be brought home. Eriksson accepted the England national team job in 2001, Alessandro Nesta departed for Milan, Verón began an ill-fated sojourn in England with Manchester United and Nedvěd left for Juventus. The rest of that team, including Simeone and Salas, was pilfered or had already peaked.

INTER MILAN 1995-2000

While others around them flourished, the 90s are considered a disappointment for Internazionale, domestically at least. Despite a string of stars arriving following Massimo Moratti’s takeover in 1995, they failed to win a single Scudetto – the only decade in which this has happened.

They broke the world transfer record twice – firstly £19.5 million for Ronaldo from Barcelona in 1997 and £31 million for Christian Vieri (who was always on the move for big money) from Lazio two years later but they found success hard to come by, this superb UEFA Cup victory in 1998 aside.

They experienced a series of embarrassments, being eliminated in the preliminary round of the Champions League by Swedish club Helsingborg IF with Álvaro Recoba missing a crucial late penalty, and also losing 6-0 in the city derby to AC Milan. Their lack of success is hard to believe when you consider the talent at Roy Hodgson’s disposal – seen here in this incredible 9 goal thriller with AS Roma in 1998-99, and here in a 4-2 win against Brescia, in a game which has been dubbed Ronaldo vs Roberto Baggio.







AS ROMA 2000-2004

Roma were largely anonymous in terms of title challengers throughout the 90s, their best league finish coming in 1997-98 where they finished 4th. The turn of the millennium saw a change in fortunes as homegrown hero Francesco Totti, aka Papa Francesco, aka The Last Roman Gladiator, began to extert his influence on the club.

Without fear of exaggeration, Francesco Totti is Roma. Practically an ever present since his debut in March 1993. He has played 740 games for the club, with 299 goals and 186 assists. He is the all time leading goal scorer in the Rome derby, the oldest goal scorer in the Champions League. Totti’s endurance is epitomised by his place as the second top goalscorer in Serie A history behind the great Silvio Piola despite not even being a striker. He has scored 115 league goals since turning 30, 33 more than Roberto Baggio and 69 more than Pippo Inzaghi managed.

The perennial bridesmaids – Roma finished 2nd in the league in 2002, 2004, 2006, 2007 and 2008 and were runners up in the Coppa Italia in 2003, 2005 and 2006. The crowning glory however came in 2000-01, where Roma secured only their 3rd Scudetto title. Roma had paid £23.5 million for Gabriel Batistuta the summer previous, a world record transfer for a plater aged over 30. The gamble paid off, with Batistuta scoring 20 league goals on his way to the title. One for the romantics – especially with Totti and Cafu also securing their first Scudetto title.



