After Years Of Mediocrity, Udinese Are Upsetting The Established Order Once Again

The beginning of a new season – no matter what league your team is in or which division one has a passing interest in – delivers a waft of optimism. Everyone generally predicts how they think the season will pan out: who will win the league; who will finish in the top four; who will fight for a European place; which sides could be surprisingly dragged into a relegation fight, and the teams that look almost inevitable to go down from day one.

Serie A is no different in this regard. Before a ball was kicked in mid-August, most had the top four already mapped out. Deciding on would win the Scudetto is a little more complicated, but the feeling was that the ‘big three’ plus one of Napoli and Roma would complete the Champions League places.

And yet, even though it’s very early days and we are far away from the finish line, there’s another team sitting in fourth position. And it’s not Roma, Inter or Juventus.

It’s Udinese.

Yes, the season is only six games in, but The Zebrette are flying high and are the league’s most inform side. They gave champions Milan a serious fright at San Siro on the opening day, beat Fiorentina at home and followed this up with a 4-0 demolition of Jose Mourinho’s Roma, in which they looked like scoring every single time they ventured forward.

New boss Andrea Sottil, father of current Fiorentina winger Riccardo, was appointed in the summer after guiding Ascoli into the Serie B playoffs last season. Sottil, himself a former Udinese player from 1999 to 2003, has been surprised by his side’s start to the season.

“I didn’t expect it,” he said in his pre-game press conference ahead of Sunday’s clash against Inter. “But we are only at the beginning and need to continue like this.”

Udinese have quietly built an impressive side, with the team a mix between experienced players like Gerard Deulofeu, Roberto Pereyra, Ilija Nestorovski and youngsters in the shape of Beto, Lazar Samardžić, Becao and Tottenham’s new signing, the gloriously-named Destiny Udogie.

So far, Udinese have been outperforming many of the bigger sides in the league, and this is reflected in statistics. Beto sits second in the Capocannoniere charts with four goals and top when it comes to goals per 90-minutes (P90). Moreover, the Portuguese forward also leads the way currently on ‘expected goals’ (xG) P90, with 1.02. The next best is Inter’s Joaquin Correa, on 0.75.

Pereyra is the league’s top assister along with Lazio’s Sergej Milinkovic-Savic, and Deulofeu sits third behind Piotr Zielinski and Paulo Dybala for expected assists.

In short, Udinese are punching above their weight, outperforming some of the bigger teams and bigger names in the league.

And it wasn’t always this way. For a period at the end of the 2000s and into the early 2010s, it was no surprise to see Udinese regularly challenging for a top three finish in Serie A. Twice, Udinese went close making it into the Champions League proper, only to fall victim to an unlucky draw and Italy’s sliding UEFAEFA
ranking at the beginning of the last decade.

Having finished third in 2011-12, Udinese, only a couple of years prior, would’ve been guaranteed a Champions League place, but after losing ground to the Bundesliga, Italy only had two teams who were guaranteed entry, and the third went into the final qualifying round.

The previous year had seen them finish fourth, draw Arsenal and lose 3-1 on aggregate after two tight games. Drawn against Braga in 2012, it seemed like Udinese were as good as through this time.

A 1-1 draw in Portugal in the first leg meant they were in the driving seat ahead of the second leg. Again, the game finished 1-1 and went to penalties. Everyone for Udinese scored, except for new signing Maicosuel, who tried a Panenka, and failed spectacularly.

Braga went through, and Udinese really haven’t been the same club ever since. After Francesco Guidolin left in the summer of 2014, the Pozzo family, who’d bought Watford just months before the Braga games, have blitzed through 12 managers – with Sottil the 13th – in eight years.

The Pozzo’s preoccupation with Watford saw Udinese slide into mid-table mediocrity for the rest of the 2010s. After finishing 5^th in 2012-13, they’ve never made it back into the top half of the table since, even dangerously flirting with relegation in 2015-16.

Antonio Di Natale, the club icon who for so long carried Udinese through those heady days, now believes the club could challenge again for a Europa League place. “Why not? Europe is no longer a dream,” he told La Gazzetta dello Sport recently. “After Guidolin there were too many changes, but now there is a good mix of experience, youth and quality in the team.”

Di Natale has been impressed with Beto and, with four goals already, the 24-year-old could be on course for his breakout season. Signed from Portimonense on a season-long loan a year ago, the move was made permanent last summer after scoring 11 goals in 28 games last season, and is on course to smash that total.

These are of course early days and expectations should be quelled, but after years of suffering the mundanity of just being in Serie A, things are looking up for Udinese.