Serie A Season Previews

By: Bob | September 8th, 2006

With the swirl of scandal still in the air, the kids in Italy kick off the Serie A season this weekend. The match-fixing mess that has relegated traditional power Juventus to the second division and that has penalized some of the league’s premier teams with point deductions hasn’t exactly been the best public relations but it has helped to create a season that could very well be as wide open of one as we’ve seen in years.

At least that is the consensus we’ve discovered from the reporters who cover Serie A and know it far better than we do. As is our custom, we’ve collected many of the season previews so that you too can be an expert on all things Italia.

The folks at Reuters offer up this fact: Inter Milan has gone 17 years without capturing a Serie A title. That might change this year, now that the club has spent 50 million euros to bring in high power stars like Hernan Crespo from Chelsea and Patrick Vieira and Zlatan Ibrahimovic from Juventus.

The Guardian also points to Inter’s role as favorite, but they are quick to point out that along with the ability of the stars come the egos and that is why the most talented team in the league might just end up blowing things. They tap AC Milan and AS Roma as the two teams most likely to finish ahead of Inter.

Square Football jumps on that thread and predicts that AC Milan will overcome its 8-point hole to top the table. With the revenue it gets from the Champions League, Milan will likely bring in some reinforcements during the winter transfer session.

Finally, there are part 1 and part 2 capsules for each of the teams so you can get to know the 12 or so teams that really don’t have a chance in this league.

As for our predictions, we’re going with the new favorites. Inter Milan has too much talent to not finish first. Sure they’ll have to balance the egos and new blood, but with a nice cushion over their biggest challengers they will start out on top and finish there too. We are also going to predict that the scandals plaguing the league will not go away this year. Yes, we know, bold predictions but sometimes the most unpredictable of leagues is quite predictable.

By the way, there seems to be a limited number of blogs that actually cover Serie A in English. If you happen to know of some good ones, feel free to leave them in the comments. Your predictions and thoughts on the Italian season ahead are also welcomed too.