"Football, like life, is filled with ups and downs, and the most important thing is to keep moving forward and never give up."
Diego Maradona
The Italian Serie A is one of the world's oldest football (soccer) leagues. While it initially existed as regional competitions starting in 1898, it took on its current form during the 1929-1930 season.
In this article, we'll be looking at what Serie A is, how it came to be, who plays in it, and why you should watch it!
A Brief History of Serie A
Association football arrived fairly early in Italy. In the 1880s, an Italian textile worker brought the game that he'd played in England back home with him to Turin.
He brought both football and cricket with him, founding the Torino Football and Cricket Club. The former was a hit and if you know anything about Italy, the country is much more famous for its football than its cricket.
For decades, Italian football was played as a series of regional competitions, with many teams being made up of foreign players and some even founded by them. Famously, the Genoa Cricket and Football Club that was founded in 1893 was set up by English, Swiss and Italian players.
With the arrival of the Serie A in 1929 supplanting the regional leagues, Italian football became more organised. The league started with 18 teams, just like France's Ligue 1 and the German Bundesliga. However, the league expanded to include 20 teams in the 2004-2005 season, much like Spain's La Liga and the English Premier League.
The League Format
Serie A is played as a round-robin. This means that every team plays each opponent twice, once at their stadium and once at their opponents. With 20 teams in the league, this means that each team plays 38 matches (19 opponents twice).
Like the greatest football leagues across Europe, Serie A is played between August or September and May. This can alter slightly according to the calendar and international football events.
Ranking and the Points System in Serie A
3 points
1 point
0 points
At the end of the season, the team with the most points is crowned the champion of Serie A and given the right to use the scudetto (more on that in a moment).
In the event of a tie between two teams, their head-to-head record is used to sort them, just like in Spain's La Liga. Essentially, this means just taking the results of the two matches where these two teams played one another.
If the head-to-head is still a tie, goal difference (goals scored minus goals conceded) is used. It's unlikely, but overall goals scored can be used to break the tie between two teams with an equal head-to-head and goal difference.
The Scudetto
The scudetto (little shield) is added to the team's shirt (jersey) after they win Serie A. Only the reigning champions will don the scudetto, which is shaped like a shield with the green, white, and red stripes of the Italian flag within it.
Similarly, the winners of Italy's domestic cup competition, the Coppa Italia (Italy Cup) sport the cockade of Italy. This is a circle with concentric circles featuring the Italian tricolour, with green in the centre, white in the middle, and red around the edges.
Unlike the stars that national teams accumulate for winning the World Cup, the scudetto and cockade are only worn by the reigning champion of each competition.
You may see some Italian teams with stars on their jerseys.
Each star represents 10 Serie A titles!
Relegation and Promotion in Serie A
Like many other football leagues, the Seria A is part of an interconnected league system where teams can be promoted and relegated.
As Serie A is at the top of the Italian football pyramid, Serie A teams cannot be promoted. However, the bottom three at the end of the season can be relegated to obviously-named Serie B.
Three teams from Serie B will be promoted to Serie A at the end of each season. First and second place are automatically promoted.
The third team to be promoted has to win a play-off, which is played between the teams ranked 3rd and 8th. 3rd and 4th place automatically qualify for the play-off semifinals while 5th through 8th need to play more rounds. However, 3rd can automatically gain promotion to Serie A if they are 15 or more points ahead of the team below them.
Interestingly, in the German Bundesliga, the teams 3rd from bottom in the upper league and 3rd in the lower league play each other to see who wins the final place in the Bundesliga.
Which Are the Most Successful Teams in Seria A?
If you're thinking about watching Serie A or following Italian football, you're in luck. There are plenty of great teams plying their trade in Italian football, many with a long and illustrious history.
Sides like Torino, Bologna, and Pro Vercelli all have 7 titles each, but many of these came decades ago.
Lazio and Roma won the Serie A in the 1999-2000 and 2000-2001 seasons respectively. More recent champions include last year's winners Napoli, the first team other than Inter Milan, AC Milan, or Juventus to win the Serie A since 2001!
Genoa
Still awaiting their first star, Genoa may have to wait a little longer. Their 9 titles were all won in the early years of Italian football before Serie A even existed.
After being relegated to Serie B at the end of the 2021-2022 season, they immediately bounced back, gaining automatic promotion to Serie A the following season.
Inter Milan
Football Club Internazionale Milano, which is often just called Inter or Inter Milan, has 19 Serie A titles.
Their most recent Serie A championship was in the 2021-2022 season. Currently, they've won and finished runners-up in Serie A exactly the same number of times as the next team but with nine Coppa Italia titles, they're slightly ahead in this respect than them.
AC Milan
Associazione Calcio Milan or AC Milan are Serie A's second most successful club. Also with 19 championships, they're one season away from adding a second star to their red and black home jersey.
With 5 titles, AC Milan have also won fewer Coppa Italia titles than Inter Milan, but with seven European Cup/Champions League trophies and two UEFA Cup Winners' Cups (one of the precursors to the UEFA Europa League), AC Milan boast more international competitions than any other Italian club.
Interestingly, both AC Milan and Inter Milan share their stadium. When the two sides play each other, one has to be designated the “home” side and the other the “away” side.
spectators.
Each team has its own home dressing room in the stadium as there are actually three dressing rooms: one for AC Milan, one for Inter Milan, and one for other “away” teams.
Juventus
With 36 championships in Serie A (and the competition preceding it), Juventus are Italy's most successful league club.
With their unmistakable black and white striped jersey donning three stars, they're arguably one of Italian football's most recognisable teams.
Juventus, which means “youth” in Latin. The club is based in Turin, the capital of Italy's Piedmont region.
Serie A's Best Players
As a top league, Serie A plays host to many great footballers as well as these great teams. It'd be impossible to name them all, but here are a few that you might want to look up.
Greats like the Argentine Diego Maradona, the French midfielder Michel Platini, and Italian AC Milan Legend Paolo Maldini all spent several years playing at the top level of Italian football.
We also have to mention Alessandro Del Piero, a great who spent nearly twenty years at Juventus before ending his career playing in Australia and India.
A particularly special mention has to go to Francesco Totti, who like Del Piero, was very faithful to one club. Unlike Del Piero, Totti only played professional senior football for one club, Roma.
professionally for AS Roma!
You can't talk about Italian football without mentioning Gianluigi Buffon, the goalkeeper who played for both Parma and Juventus (with two spells at each) and the French Ligue 1 side Paris Saint-Germain for one season. With 176 appearances for the Italian national side, he's played more matches for them than any other Italian player and has more appearances than any other international goalkeeper.
Which Are the Best Places to See Football in Serie A?
We mentioned that AC Milan and Inter Milan share the same stadium. If you're looking for a great football atmosphere, Italian football has it.
In addition to the massive San Siro, the Stadio Olimpico in Rome plays host to both AS Roma and SS Lazio, who like their Milanese counterparts, share a stadium.
You could see a Juventus match at the Allianz Stadium, which with a capacity of 41,000, is a bit smaller than the others.
Then there's the atmosphere at Napoli, who are famously amongst Italy's most passionate football fans.
Enjoyed this article? Leave a rating!
Loading...
