League Focus: Striking Duos Set To Storm Serie A

In its early nineties pomp, Serie A was home to some of the greatest attacking duos European football had ever seen. Roberto Mancini and Luca Vialli won a league title for Sampdoria and were crowned I Gemelli del gol – The Goal Twins – for their incredible combined strike rate. Toto Schillaci and Roberto Baggio took their World Cup exploits from the Azzurri of Italy to the famous black and white stripes of Juventus, while Milan boasted Ruud Gullit and Marco Van Basten at the forefront of their all-conquering side. Brazilian Careca proved an excellent foil for the wonderful Diego Maradona, Fiorentina had Gabriel Batistuta and Stefano Borgonovo while even lower down the league, Lazio pair Karl-Heinz Riedle and Rubén Sosa flourished under Dino Zoff.

Recent seasons had seen teams abandon the forward tandem in favour of a lone frontman who was often more concerned with bringing others into play than finding the back of the net. Selfless hard workers like Vincenzo Iaquinta found their way into prominent roles, while others – such as Antonio Di Natale or Edinson Cavani – flourished as soloists and often found themselves alone in the opposition box.

All that looks set to change in the coming year as, thanks to the revival of the 3-5-2 formation on the peninsula, teams search once again for an attacking pair to unlock Italy’s notoriously tight defences. Some of the country’s biggest clubs have once more found themselves looking for chemistry and understanding in front of goal, and that has already been reflected in the transfer market over the summer weeks.

Nowhere is that more true than with the two-time defending champions Juventus, who, thanks to some shrewd deals, can now pair Spain’s Fernando Llorente with former Manchester City star Carlos Tevez. Each has already been analysed on this blog (revisit those entries here and here) but it bears repeating that they have scored 53 and 58 league goals, respectively, over the past four seasons despite each suffering one year banished to the sidelines. If they can recapture their best form in Turin, then they will, when allied to the team built by Beppe Marotta and drilled by Antonio Conte, add the one last ingredient to what Leonardo Bonucci described earlier this week as “already a well-oiled machine.”

That they have won two consecutive Scudetti without a single player surpassing ten league goals in either season is something of a frightening prospect and becomes even more concerning when noting the Bianconeri’s wastefulness in front of goal. Last season they needed 9.8 shots for every goal scored (7th best in Serie A), and even that was an improvement on the 10.8 shots per goal from the previous year. 

Mirko Vucinic and Fabio Quagliarella - their most regularly selected strikers - took 9.1 and 7.9 shots per goal, respectively, last term, and those figures pale significantly against the same from Llorente. The Spaniard needed just 79 shots to score 24 La Liga goals (3.3 shots per goal) in his last full season (2011-12), though while the latter took 120 shots to reach 20 Premier League goals a year earlier (6 shots per goal), he needed 105 shots to reach 11 goals in 2012/13 (9.5 shots per goal).

As the rest of Serie A looks to bridge the gap, it has put together some equally impressive striking units, and perhaps that is most obvious in Florence, as the Viola are set to unite Giuseppe Rossi with Mario Gomez after selling Stevan Jovetic. The American-Italian may have hardly played over the past calendar year, but announced himself as a global force in 2010-11 when netting a stunning 32 goals in all competitions for Villarreal.

His doctors – and coach Vincenzo Montella – seem thoroughly impressed with his recovery, and alongside the prolific Gomez it is hoped he will once again show the form which not so long ago attracted interest from Barcelona. The German netted no fewer than 75 goals in 115 Bundesliga appearances for Bayern Munich before being deemed surplus to requirements by Pep Guardiola.

With the World Cup less than ten months away, both men will be desperate for the goals that will earn them a place in their respective national teams in Brazil, and for Gomez, he need look no further than Rome for a standard against which to measure himself. The Italian capital is now home to another former Bayern striker, and Miroslav Klose certainly left a lasting impression in his debut season for Lazio. Scoring fifteen goals in 26 starts for the Biancocelesti, the 35-year old is sitting at 67 international goals, just one behind Gerd Müller, and has said publically that the 2014 World Cup will be his last.

Key to his superb campaign was his understanding with Hernanes. Often deployed just behind Klose by Vladimir Petkovic, the Brazilian returned to a rich vein of form and added 11 goals and 4 assists to help the club to a seventh-placed finish in Serie A. It is apt, as we note the abundance of attacking talent, to note that the Giallorossi – still heavily reliant on Captain Francesco Totti – are in a state of flux as they once again change coach and seem intent on selling last year’s leading scorer, Pablo Osvaldo.

With Diego Milito and Rodrigo Palacio set to help new Inter coach Walter Mazzarri reignite the hopes of Inter, it is perhaps crosstown rivals Milan who boast potentially the best attacking duo in the league. After Stephan El Shaarawy began the season at a lightening pace – netting no less than 18 goals before the winter break – it was only the arrival of Mario Balotelli that slowed the progress of the highly talented 20-year old.

The former Manchester City striker took on the goalscoring burden, however, living up to his ‘Super Mario’ moniker to bag 12 goals in 13 appearances following his January transfer. Having spent the summer together with Italy at the Confederations Cup, Massimiliano Allegri will hope his two stars have developed the kind of chemistry the Rossoneri will need in order to challenge Juventus.

Add in a still-hungry Di Natale, and the prolific Gonzalo Higuaín replacing Cavani in Naples, and it is clear that whatever happens, Serie A’s reputation as dour and defensive is clearly misplaced. There will, one way or another, be goals in Italy this season, and the duo who bag the most may well decide who stitches the famous green, white and red shield on their shirts next summer.