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There will be no Italian club heading to Milan's San Siro for this year's Champions League final, and none going to Basel for the Europa League final either, with all Serie A sides out of Europe by the quarterfinals for the first time since 2001. Lazio followed Juventus in being eliminated this week and you have to go back 15 years for the last time there was not one single representative of Italian football among the final 16 clubs of Europe's two major club competitions. After sending three clubs through to the same stage last season -- with Fiorentina and Napoli reaching the semifinals of the Europa League and Juve going all the way to the final of the Champions League -- the transformation in Italian clubs' results is a major blow in their attempts to snatch a fourth Champions League berth from the Premier League. Indeed, a repeat this year of the respective results of Premier League and Serie A clubs in Europe last season would have seen Italy move up to third in UEFA's five-year rankings and take that fourth Champions League spot from 2017-18. With Liverpool and Manchester City entering Friday's draws in Nyon, the Premier League even has the opportunity to strengthen its third rank -- although it will lose almost four points when the 2011-12 season is scratched from the list in the summer. That increases the chances of England holding onto its fourth Champions League berth also for 2018-19, despite losing a further two points to Italy at the end of next season. "What we have done is a disgrace," said Lazio's Luca Biglia, referring to his side's 3-0 defeat at home to Sparta Prague on Thursday night which saw them eliminated 4-1 on aggregate. "It's disgraceful -- truly disgraceful. "I hope that tonight can prove to be a lesson for us." That lesson will need to be heeded by all Italian clubs in Europe next season, in particular the one forced to go through two qualifying rounds to reach the Europa League group stage, with Sampdoria's crushing defeat to Vojvodina in July setting the tone for a disappointing year in Europe for Italian clubs. Lazio's unexpected but equally deserved elimination was perhaps an apt conclusion. "We didn't play as a team and we should be ashamed," said Lazio's Nenad Lulic in La Gazzetta dello Sport. "When you've got to stand there and take the jeers after a game like tonight's, then you should all be there taking those jeers and not just five or six of us. "The others had escaped into the dressing room. This shows that we're not a team. When you get applause, everybody's there to take it, and the same should go for the jeers."
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