The problem about the Palermo UEFA-Cup performance is mainly that their coach did not play his best 11 except for the last game vs Celta Vigo. It was mainly a team from the bench which kinda pissed me off, sice I have developed a certain like for the underdogs from Sicilia

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I don't think so, The Italian standard at least of the first 10 teams, is much higher than Germany. Just try to watch Bundesliga every now and then and you'll see.
And international, well, Germany has one team in CL and two teams in UEFA-Cup left after Schalke, f.e. was out before the group stage in their games vs Nancy(!) and
Hamburg, who made a total joke out of themselves in the CL.