Como's Fairytale Champions League Call-Ups Milan and Juventus in Historic Serie A Collapse
Cesc Fabregas guided Como to a 4-1 victory over 10-man Cremonese on the final day of the Serie A season on 24 May 2026, sealing Champions League football for the first time in the club's 121-year history. The result completed one of European football's most improbable promotions in recent memory—and left two of Italy's traditional heavyweights facing a season without Europe's premier club competition.
AC Milan, featuring United States international Christian Pulisic, lost at home to Cagliari and fell out of the Champions League places. Juventus, for whom US midfielder Weston McKennie has been a regular presence this season, also missed out on qualification. The three clubs' divergent fates, settled in the space of a single afternoon, reflected the widening competitive gulf in Italian football and the mounting costs of failure.
The Day That Shook Italian Football
The mathematics were unforgiving. Milan entered the final round with their fate in their own hands but collapsed at San Siro against a Cagliari side with little to play for. A loss, combined with results elsewhere, sent the Rossoneri tumbling out of the top four. Pulisic, who joined Milan from Chelsea in 2023 and has been among their most consistent performers, watched from a side that will now face at least a season in the Europa League wilderness.
Juve's elimination carried a different weight. The Bianconeri finished outside the Champions League places for the third time in four seasons—a remarkable decline for a club that dominated Italian football for much of the previous three decades. McKennie, whose versatility and industry have made him a fixture under multiple managers, now faces the prospect of European football's second tier or none at all.
The broader Serie A picture was equally stark. Five clubs entered the final round with realistic hopes of Champions League qualification; only two of them—Inter and Napoli—secured their places. The remaining spots went to Atalanta and the unlikeliest candidate of all.
Como's Ascent From Serie B to the Pinnacle
Fabregas took charge of Como in January 2024, inheriting a club that had spent the 2021-22 season in Serie B, finishing 19th before winning promotion through the play-offs. That 2021-22 campaign was the lowest ebb in a club history that had once included players like Gianluca Vialli and Roberto Baggio in better days.
Under the former Arsenal, Barcelona, and Chelsea midfielder, Como transformed. The club, purchased by an Indonesian consortium in 2021, invested heavily in the transfer market, assembling a squad that blended experienced Serie A operators with promising young talent. The result was a 69-point season that no analyst would have predicted two years earlier.
The 4-1 victory over Cremonese was comprehensive. With Cremonese reduced to ten men after an early red card, Como controlled the match and took their chances with the efficiency of a side that had learned to win ugly in Serie A's mid-table. Fabregas's fingerprints were evident in the team's composure and tactical discipline—qualities that translated directly into points.
The Price of Standing Still
Milan's failure raises immediate questions about the club's strategic direction. Since winning Serie A in 2021-22 under Stefano Pioli, the club has regressed. The arrival of Paulo Fonseca as manager for 2024-25 did not arrest the slide. The current squad contains genuine talent—Pulisic among them—but lacks the depth and structural coherence to sustain a four-front season across domestic and European competition.
The financial implications are substantial. Champions League participation generates broadcast revenue, attracts higher-calibre transfer targets, and provides the commercial visibility that sustains global brands. Milan, owned by Elliott Management and later RedBird Capital Partners, now faces the prospect of explaining to sponsors and supporters why the club will be absent from the competition it once dominated.
Juventus's situation is structurally more serious. The club has not won Serie A since 2019-20. Repeated failures to qualify for the Champions League have accelerated a debt accumulation that prompted the recent sale of key players and a philosophical shift toward younger, cheaper talent. McKennie's continued presence in Turin reflects both his ability and the club's reduced ambitions.
What Remains Unresolved
The sources do not specify the exact points gap separating the Champions League qualifiers from the clubs that missed out. The precise arithmetic of Serie A's coefficient ranking—which determines how many Italian clubs qualify for the Champions League in subsequent seasons—remains in flux pending confirmation from UEFA. Whether this season's dramatic final day has any bearing on Italy's future allocation slots is a question that will not be settled until UEFA publishes its calculations.
What is clear is that Serie A's traditional hierarchy has fractured. The days when Milan, Juventus, and Inter dominated the top four slots are over. The financial disparities between Serie A's middle tier and its leaders have narrowed; clubs like Atalanta and Fiorentina have closed the gap. Como's qualification is the logical endpoint of that convergence.
For Fabregas, the victory was validation of a coaching project that began in Italy's lower divisions. For Pulisic and McKennie, it was a reminder that individual talent counts for little when institutional structures fail. The final day of the 2025-26 Serie A season told both stories simultaneously—and neither ending was foreordained.
This desk led with BBC Sport's match report and added ESPN's coaching-angle coverage. The CBS headline framing—"disastrous"—captured the Milan and Juventus collapse more colourfully than the British wire, but the underlying facts were consistent across all three sources.