It’s been two weeks since the end of the Serie A season and the fans of Bari, Brescia and Sampdoria will be mulling over a season or more in Serie B. How did it happen? And what now for the clubs?

Sampdoria

It started off on a bit of a downer as they were eliminated by Werder Bremen in Extra time in the last qualifying round of the Champions League. Then in October it started to go all wrong for the club as the club president Ricardo Garrone and star man Antonio Cassano fell out over Cassano not going to an awards meal with Garrone. It all went downhill from there as Antonio Cassano was frozen out of the squad and then was sold to AC Milan for a pittance.

Also in January another top player of Sampdoria Giampaolo Pazzini was sold to Inter Milan for over £12m and he has flourished on the blue side of Milan. With that the replacements for the outgoing was very very poor in Massimo Maccarone and Federico Macheda. Macheda bombed at the club scoring one goal in a Coppa Italia game and Maccarone also failed with some very poor displays. The manager Domenico Di Carlo was sacked early in 2011 and he was replaced by Alberto Cavasin who was not a massive success and after the AC Milan game in April the players and the manager was attacked and had to have the Police help them out on the training ground.

What will happen for next season is that there will be an exodus of players as Reto Ziegler as already decided to jump ship to go to Juventus and the Co-Ownership deals of Fernando Tissone, Stefano Guberti, Daniele Mannini and Gianluca Curci are up for review and they could be returning to their parent club. One thing that could be a bright and shining light is that both Nicola Pozzi and Angelo Palombo stated that are willing to stay in Serie B and scrap it out.

Bari

After a really good first season after promotion Bari succumbed to the second season syndrome. After defeating Juventus 1-0 on the opening day of the season on a very sunny Sunday evening in August it went pear shaped. The big problem was the injury to star striker in Paulo Barreto who only played 13 games scoring 4 goals. The other problem was that Bari lost Leonardo Bonucci and Andrea Ranocchia and the club failed to find replacement for the two. With four rounds to go the club was mathematically and they went down with a whimper. Bari will lose 8 players straight away as the club had 8 players on loan and they will return to the parent club. Clubs will come sniffing around a few players including the keeper Jean Francois-Gillet, Salvatore Masiello and Andrea Masiello ET all. But one of the players that could be a star in Serie B next season is the hat-trick hero of Francesco Grandolfo who done a stellar job on the final day of the season. Bari could struggle next with their financial problems.

Brescia

The final of our relegation is Bresica and it was a sole season back in Serie A and it ended badly as they were relegated 10 months later. The table doesn’t lie and Brescia laid second bottom behind Bari and they have had a horrific season on returning. Brescia lost 20 out of the 38 and they looked all of a Serie B side they are now. Two players stood out for me and it was Alessandro Diamanti who on more than one occasion was the star man and excelled in Brescia shirt. A year earlier he had a one year stint in London at West Ham and i think that year in England as really helped his game. The other player in the giant of a target man which is Andrea Caracciolo who by far the best player and he scored some crucial goals but it came up in vein. He had the chance to leave in the January transfer window to go to England and join Fulham but he stayed and stuck it out. I could imagine that these two players could be on the way if Brescia gets inviting offers. As I write about this Shakhtar Donetsk are interested in Alessandro Diamanti and Brescia could have a fight on their hands to keep him.