Remember the ‘calcio is back’ promo Serie A launched two years ago on the back of six of its teams reaching the quarter final phase in three European competitions?

That video, containing Fabio Capello, Luca Toni and Fabio Cannavaro sitting inside a classic theatre with the dulcet tones of Luciano Pavarotti’s belting out Nessun Dorma, feels a little bit premature now.

To say it’s been a disastrous week for Italian clubs in the Champions League would be putting it mildly.

Juventus, AC Milan and Atalanta all conspired to find new ways to eliminate themselves from Europe: Juventus were lacklustre against PSV Eindhoven, Milan comical against Feyenoord and Atalanta somewhat unlucky against Club Brugge.

Yet the theme remained the same. Three ties that were very winnable ended in defeat.

The dissection of what went wrong had already began even before Juve’s game in Eindhoven kicked off on Wednesday evening. Milan and Atalanta’s exits on Tuesday damaged Italian pride immensely. Juve’s limp elimination just added fuel to the fire.

Capello, interviewed by La Gazzetta dello Sport, believes intensity was a deciding factor in the Juve and Milan games.

“We saw the difficulty in keeping up with the pace of the opponents. PSV practically never passed the ball to the goalkeeper, they never went back, but always forward, even when they were winning,” said the 1994 Champions League winner. “Our teams are not used to such pressure”. 

Alessandro Del Piero, a man who won the competition in 1996 and played in four finals, concurred. 

“There was a huge gap,” said the former Juve captain. “Although Juve played very well in the first half with personality, there was a big difference in the quality of passes, intensity, and desire with which they went looking for the goal.”

Pace in European competition has always been a thorny issue for Italian sides. The slower nature of calcio has often hindered its sides in Europe, especially when playing against English opposition.

Yet Serie A teams had managed to cope in recent years by virtue of tactical sophistication and defensive solidity. Atalanta had also bucked that trend due to Gian Piero Gasperini’s high press and man-to-man marking system that’s an outlier in today’s game.

However the defending from all three sides this week was shambolic to the point of comedic, with Juve in particular guilty of horrendous defending for all four of PSV’s goals across the two legs.

Thiago Motta, who’d won plaudits for his approach in the Derby d’Italia win against Inter last weekend, has been accused of being too reactionary to PSV’s superior fitness levels by leaving it too late in the contest to make substitutions. 

The defeat in Eindhoven is all the more galling when looking at the fact that Juve spent €200m last summer on players and their opponents a mere €31m, which wouldn’t even get you one Nico Gonzalez.

Yet the results this week demonstrate simply spending money isn’t enough to win games of football, not at the highest level. 

The intensity shown by the Dutch sides, the willingness to put in the hard yards, is something Italian sides simply don’t face enough of at home.

Milan also found this out in their exit to Feyenoord on Tuesday. Of course, their evening wasn’t helped by the moment of madness from Theo Hernandez — whose days in Rossoneri colours are surely numbered — but there was a real lack of urgency and vitality to Milan’s play. It was all too languid, too casual.

All of that being said, Juve and Milan’s exits aren’t entirely surprising, considering how inconsistent they’ve been this season. Milan are a club, after all, that can beat Real Madrid in the Spanish capital, but also somehow draw with Cagliari four days later.

Juventus, meanwhile, have drawn 13 games in Serie A and Thiago Motta has been accused by former Juve players of lacking the ‘obsession’ to win that has characterised the club for decades. 

Atalanta’s exit is what’s arguably the most head-scratching. Viewed as Italy’s most ‘European’ team, Gasperini’s men were hard done-by with the penalty call at the end of the first leg, and let emotions get the better of them in the second.

Much like Juve and Milan, Atalanta looked leggy, especially in defence. Playing the likes of Rafael Toloi, Marten De Roon and Juan Cuadrado, all of whom are in their mid-30s, hardly helped La Dea cope with the intelligence and running of the Belgian side.

Serie A’s chances of securing a fifth Champions League spot for a second consecutive season have all but evaporated. Meaning that, ironically, one of – if not both – Juve and Milan will miss out on the competition next season.

It’s been a damaging week for Italian football in Europe, but just as much as that promo two years ago hailing the return of Serie A was a little too hasty, we shouldn’t be so willing to declare a state of emergency for the Italian game. Lessons are to be learned.