<Ohara Story>

All the tournament favourites (Real Madrid, Manchester City and Bayern Munich) found themselves on one side of the bracket. The Italians, meanwhile, were bundled together with Benfica in the other. As good as Napoli had been up until then in Serie A, a Milanese Euroderby in the semis, the first in 20 years, felt like an inevitability.

Juventus, meanwhile, dropped down to the Europa League after the ignominy of losing five of their six Champions League group games, the nadir coming on a humiliating night in the Israeli city of Haifa. The need for them to win UEFA’s second-tier club competition was impressed on the Turin giants by that punishment doled out to them in Serie A and the compromised nature it left their chances of finishing in the top four. Lifting the Europa League trophy represented an alternative route to next season’s Champions League and therefore had to be taken seriously.

Roma acted on the same incentive. The belated re-emergence of Inter and Milan in recent years, not to mention the overachievement of Atalanta, has in part been to Roma’s detriment. A club who finished in the Champions League places for five consecutive years from 2013 have now gone five years without qualifying. Curiously, in the same timeframe, they have become Serie A’s most consistent performer in Europe. In fact, the only club to make as many semi-finals in the UEFA competitions as Roma’s four over this period are Real Madrid.

Adding to the impression that ‘Calcio is back’ is the return of a third UEFA competition after over two decades of having only two, with last season’s inauguration of the Conference League.

UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin conceived it as a tournament that might provide clubs from outside the continent’s top five leagues with a chance of winning a European trophy. The venues for its two finals so far have been small enough to lend more credence to that idea. But Roma won the first edition in Albanian capital Tirana, consolidating the club’s new European identity, and Fiorentina will now contest the second in Prague.

The commitment Italian clubs have shown to the Conference League has been unexpected and is appreciated by Ceferin. Seeing Roma beat Feyenoord a year ago today may not have made other Serie A teams envious, but 12 years on from Inter’s treble and 23 years after Parma hoisted the UEFA Cup (now the Europa League), it served as a reminder that success in Europe is possible.

Whatever you think of Jose Mourinho’s brand of football, he has shifted the mentality in Serie A back towards Europe.

He is responsible for the league’s last two European trophies with Inter (the 2010 Champions League) and Roma and while he may no longer be at his peak, he isn’t past it either. Mourinho is rationalising this phase of his managerial career in terms of giving back. “I want to get to the final. Not for me,” he said before the second leg of Roma’s semi-final against Bayer Leverkusen. “But for the lads, for the fans.” And indirectly for Serie A too.

These are the little big things causing Serie A’s dormant aura to flicker back on. The sparks rising from Napoli’s 4-1 win over last year’s Champions League runners-up Liverpool, and the 6-1 lesson in total football they gave Ajax in the house that Johan Cruyff built. Inter lighting up the Camp Nou with three goals. The world’s attention back on Milan for a week and the electric atmosphere of the Euroderby — one of the sport’s must-attend events. The Proustian purple of Fiorentina transporting a generation of fans back to the days of Roberto Baggio, Gabriel Batistuta and Rui Costa.

Good fortune has been emphasised rather flippantly as an explanation for this unlikely scenario. The truth is any coach or player to have ever reached a final will tell you a slice of luck never goes amiss.

Xavi is presumably still bitter his Barcelona side didn’t get a penalty when Denzel Dumfries handled the ball in the area during Inter’s 1-0 win at San Siro in the group stage. Milan made their own luck by winning last season’s Serie A, landing a relatively easy group as a top seed and then drawing Tottenham Hotspur from the clutch of group winners in the round of 16.

Characterising the finalists as beneficiaries of a total fluke would be wrong, though. Inter have played 12 European games this season to reach Istanbul, Roma two more to make it to Budapest; Fiorentina 16 to book their meeting with West Ham. That’s a lot of football, ample opportunity for something to go wrong; and yet they have all creditably avoided self-inflicted fatality.

If we were to trace what the Italian clubs going deep into the European competitions this season have in common, one is they have coaches who have been around for at least a season. Sackings were few and far between in Serie A last summer and continuity has undoubtedly helped these sides, along with experience. People tend to forget that a strong nucleus of these Inter players also reached a Europa League final three years ago at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Then there is Simone Inzaghi’s reputation as a cup specialist. As for Roma, they have taken the momentum of winning the Conference League into this season and Mourinho’s track record in Europe needs no elaboration.

In Fiorentina’s case, Vincenzo Italiano raises the bar every year. He is the brightest coaching prospect to emerge in Italy since Roberto De Zerbi.

Italiano got Trapani promoted from the third to the second division, Spezia up to the top flight for the first time in their history, and now Fiorentina into a Coppa Italia final — which they narrowly lost 2-1 to Inter last night — and the Florence club’s first European final since 1990 in his first season coaching in a UEFA competition.

Also catching the eye is the core of Italian players each finalist leans on.

Inter have a quintet in their starting XI, Roma boast Gianluca Mancini, Lorenzo Pellegrini, Leonardo Spinazzola and — deep breath, Romanisti — Andrea Belotti. Fiorentina are built around Pietro Terracciano, Cristiano Biraghi, Giacomo Bonaventura, Rolando Mandragora and Riccardo Saponara. The bond they share and their attachment to their clubs have made a difference.