Even though the Italian League is not as good as it once used to be, it remains one of the top leagues in Europe and the World. We take a look at what happened at the top and bottom end of the table for the 2018/2019 season. Enjoy!
Juventus
Oh Juve. By far the most successful team in Serie A’s history and the last 8 seasons, this season proved once again that Juventus are on a whole other level in their domestic league. A year on from the one of the tightest title race with Napoli, this season took everyone by surprise when they broke away from the opposition to win the league by 11 points despite negative results at the end after confirming themselves as champions.
These days, one has to mention Cristiano Ronaldo when talking about Juventus. The Portugal international shocked the world when he made the decision to leave Real Madrid for a “new challenge”. Although he did manage to bag 21 goals and 8 assists, the season might arguably be a failure for him as he did not manage to hit anywhere close to his best form for Real Madrid and Juventus were again knocked out in the Quarter-finals of the Champions League, the very competition Ronaldo was supposedly brought in to help win.
Knowing Ronaldo, winning another league title will not be enough and we highly suspect he is already in the gym training for next season.
Napoli
Napoli finished in second place again this season but failed to mount enough of a challenge to Juventus for the top spot. Under Carlo Ancelotti for his first season in charge, Napoli never really looked like they had it in them to go one better than the last time.
They managed to score more goals than Juventus in the league, with Dries Mertens and Arkadiusz Milik managing to score 33 goals between the 2 of them. However, even with the highly rated Kalidou Koulibaly in the side, they wound up leaking 6 more goals than Juventus did. This led to unwanted results and having lost both games to Juventus, things never really looked like it was going to go their way.
With their former manager Maurizio Sarri now taking over their rivals, it will be interesting to see how the Napoli fans react when the champions come to visit next season.
Atalanta
The surprise package of the season! Atalanta blew the pundits away with their attractive brand of attacking football. Not only have they gotten everyone to love them, this was also their highest League placing ever! They finished level on points with fourth placed Inter Milan but finished on top by bettering Inter on their head-to-head record.
Credit must go to the team that no one would have ever bet on going into the season to make it into the top 4. It also helped to have Duvan Zapata, who finished second in the goalscoring charts with 23 goals and 7 assists and finished ahead of Cristiano Ronaldo.
Not bad for a player having never scored more than 11 in a single season in Italy.
Inter Milan
The Milan giants were tipped to challenge for the title, with confidence high after the captures of Radja Nainggolan, Stefan De Vrij and Lautaro Martinez. With a decent start, things looked to be going according to plan. However, results started to go the other way come the start of the year and they only managed to secure 4th place and the last Champions League spot on the final day of the season from their city rivals AC Milan.
It probably didn’t help that their star striker refused to play for the second half of the season after he was stripped of the captaincy due to his wife’s remarks about the team on football chat shows. Mauro Icardi has the talent but he may very well be wasting it with these shenanigans. Question is, who would take him off Inter’s hands?
We will have to wait and see if new manager Antonio Conte has him in his plans for next season.
AC Milan
AC Milan’s 5th placed finish was simply not good enough. Ex-player Gennaro Gattuso was unable to do any better for the club he played for 13 years. It’s safe to say that the San Siro is not what it used to be a decade ago, as Milan have not managed to break the top 4 since the 2012-2013 season six years ago.
Many felt that Gattuso’s abrasive style would push the team their levels of old but with January signing Piatek (after losing Higuain to Chelsea in the same month) unable to maintain the stream of goals after his incredible start to life in Milan, the season ended with another Europa League berth and manager Gattuso leaving the club by mutual consent.
Roma
Unfortunately for Roma, life after their Golden Boy Francesco Totti is not looking as bright as they would have hoped for. Totti, who spent his entire career at Roma, retired in 2017. Roma’s 2017/2018 campaign looked more of the same, with them finishing third, as they have managed to play second or third fiddle to Juventus since the 2013/2014 season.
This season was different however, with them finishing 6th and out of the Champion League for the first time in 5 years. They were not too far away though, as they finished only 3 points behind Atalanta and Inter. They had already lost Kevin Strootman, Radja Nainggolan last season and Totti and Mohamed Salah the season before that and it will only get worse as they see their second highest capped player, Daniele De Rossi leave the team this season.
Rome is falling? We shall see.
Relegated Teams
Empoli, Frosinone, and Chievo were relegated to Serie B. Empoli made it all the way to the final day of the season with a shout to avoid relegation. However, they failed to capitalize on Genoa’s draw on the final day by losing themselves to finish level on points with Genoa on 38 points, getting relegated after losing out both on head-to-head and goal difference.
Frosinone and Chievo got relegated early, with Chievo only mustering 2 wins all season and ending the season with 17 points whilst Frosinone had 5 wins and 25 points.