Francesco Guidolin has worked nothing short of miracles at Udinese in the past few seasons. Despite repeatedly losing key players to bigger clubs, he'd managed to twice qualify for the preliminary stages of the Champions League. However, a club can't rely on miracles being worked every season and the bubble seemed to have finally burst for Udinese in the 2013/14 campaign. That is not a slight on Guidolin because mid-table is about where the club should finish. The summer saw another star depart as Mehdi Benatia left to join Roma where he ended up enjoying an outstanding season. There was some optimism as he was the only high profile departure but the rest of the star names were ageing and their powers were on the wane. Antonio Di Natale remained the talisman and, despite ending up with another very respectable goal haul of 17 - he is clearly coming to the end. In fact, he announced his retirement a few weeks before the end of the season before going a goal splurge during the run-in which convinced him to change his mind. As ever, the Zebrette relied far too heavily on his goals and, at 37 years old, they can't afford to do that any more. Young talents such as Luis Muriel and Nico Lopez failed to really fulfil their potential but they still have time. There were some youthful talents who did make the grade this term. Allan was consistent and assured in central midfield but the real breakout star played between the sticks. 17 year old goalkeeper Simone Scuffet emerged as the most natural looking successor to Italy's number one, Gianluigi Buffon. The large number of goals conceded by Udinese was more down to the failure to replace Benatia than the young goalkeeper who kept them from having a much worse "goals conceded" column. Nevertheless, the squad is simply too thin to continue to sustain constant miraculous pushes towards Europe. Guidolin has finally followed through on his threats to quit as manager but remains at the club in an advisory role. The surprise choice to replace him was former Inter boss, Andrea Stramaccioni, who showed some promise at the Nerazzurri before finding the job too big. He is inexperienced but this may be a more manageable role for him.
