Season 2004 / 2005
After the perfect season of 2003, David Esteves, Inter manager, dubbed 'Il Magnifico' by club's fans, has been second twice and itching to get the gold back to Milano. This season was a very dominant season by Fiorentina where signori Arturo Bandini had a storming season and main reason being excellent tactics, Oleg Veretennikov who is perhaps seen as near end of his great career, still delivering world class football. The winger scored 58 goals in 35 games for his club. Inter had their pivotal striker Ruud van Nistelrooy injured and thus managing to score "only" 30 goals, where as normally he scores around 50 goals each season. AC Milan 3rd place was not a big surprise as they had won the Champions League two seasons ago, but had not that great of a season during the 2003/2004 campaign.
Season 2005 / 2006
Lazio, after finishing 3, 4 and 7th in Serie A, getting knocked out of CL QF stage 3 consecutive seasons, would have to play in the Uefa Cup, and making key acquisitions and perfecting strategy ended up with a Serie A win, Italian cup and Uefa cup gold. 'Il Magnifico' finishing second was no surprise, and for the bronze medal, there was very even battle by Juventus, AC Milan and Fiorentina.
Italy who had all 4 Italian teams in the semifinals of UEFA cup and 3 out of 8 quarterfinalists, would see a very disappointing performance of national team in EURO 2006, where they failed to reach quarterfinals, finishing third after Germany and Belgium.
Portugal won the final, beating Greece 2 - 0 and France got the bronze medal, defeating Netherlands 1 - 0.
Great season for Italian club teams and disappointing one for the national team.