Serie A | Betting on Football in Italian Serie A

Before we delve deeper into Serie A betting, we need to go back in time. Anyone under 30 may find it hard to imagine, but between the 80s and the late 1990s, Serie A was the league where all the big stars played. Paolo Rossi, Michel Platini, Michael Laudrup, Marco van Basten, Ruud Gullit, Frank Rijkaard, Diego Maradona, Andriy Shevchenko, Paolo Maldini, Zinedine Zidane and Filipo Inzaghi; just to name a few (we could go on). At that time Serie A betting was the cream of the crop, right up there with the other big leagues.

After more than 20 lean years, Italian football seems to be fighting its way back up to the European top. Clubs like AC Milan, Inter, Napoli, AS Roma and Atalanta are finally on the way back. That Juventus’ hegemony has finally been broken says a lot about Juventus, but also about the increasing level of Serie A.

There’s still a gap with the Premier League and Primera Division, but it is narrowing. You can see this in the attention Serie A gets and in the transfers of young international top footballers to clubs like Juventus and Inter. This attention does not escape the bookmakers either, who in turn try to get your attention by Serie A betting promotions.

League set-up

The format of the competition is similar to that of the Primera Division and the Premier League. Together, these leagues make up the top three national leagues in Europe. Whether this is due to the set-up remains to be seen, but it is striking. The Eredivisie and Bundesliga, for example, have a different set-up.

Twenty teams play in Serie A, of which three are relegated at the end of the season. These are replaced by numbers 1, 2 and the winner of the playoffs from Serie B. It is notable that many clubs from northern Italy play in Serie A. One possible explanation for this goes back to Roman times, when Hannibal ran down southern Italy with his elephants. Either way, something to keep in mind when you bet on Serie A.

What further characterises Serie A are scandals and clubs going bankrupt due to financial mismanagement. One thing is certain: it is never boring! Which can also be said about Serie A betting.

Serie A Betting | Contenders

Due to the erratic existence of clubs in Italy, it is difficult to give a complete historical overview of participants in Serie A. We can, however, give a good idea of the clubs currently playing in Serie A. In the 2022/2023 season, at least the following teams will compete:

AC Milan, International, Napoli, Juventus, Lazio, AS Roma, Fiorentina, Atalanta Bergamo, Hellas Verona, Torino (of the top 10, only Napoli comes from the south!), Sassuolo, Udinese, Bologna, Empoli, Sampdoria, Spezia, Lecce and Cremonese (the latter two promoted from Serie B).

Contenders

Until recently, we would have advised you to put your money on Juventus for the ‘scudetto’, but since Ronaldo has been playing there… All jokes aside, other clubs have things well in hand. Certainly the clubs from Milan. We think there are four serious contenders for the title in 2022/2023: AC Milan, Inter, Napoli and Juventus.

A lot is going to happen this summer. We do not expect Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s contract to be renewed (and if it is, he probably won’t play that much anymore), Dybala to leave Juventus, Ángel di María (34), Ivan Perisic (33) and Paul Pogba (29) to be recruited for the old lady. If Inter do manage to keep the current squad together, they will have the best papers for next season.

Historically, of course, these are also the names that have traditionally competed for the title. Fortunately, every now and then another team manages to break that Big 3 hegemony. The titles of these outsiders also have much more eternal value for their supporters than ‘one of the many titles’ of, say, Juventus. And obviously also have more value in terms of odds, when considering an outright winner with Serie A betting.

Outsiders

A good league has a bevy of outsiders that can make things difficult for the top teams. This is true for Serie A as well. And makes Serie A betting so much fun. While the absolute favourites for the title come from the north of Italy, the outsiders come from the centre.

Especially in Rome, two clubs are aiming for a stunt: Lazio and AS Roma. Mourinho has complained a lot about his team, but is clearly on the way back. Two other outsiders for the title are Atalanta Bergamo and Napoli. Napoli in particular are close to the top teams.

Serie A Betting

Top scorer

Italy is the football country where the average age is just a bit higher than in the rest of Europe. Last season’s top scorer was Lazio’s Ciro Immobile (32 years old), but surprisingly, among them was a series of youthful footballers who could compete for the top scorer title next year: Dusan Vlahovic (22), Lautaro Martinez (24) and Gianluca Scamacca (23). These are guys to keep in your head when betting on Serie A top scorer 2022/2023.

First Time Winner

Past results are no guarantee for the future. This means that a club can always surface that nobody expected. And that means high odds. In the current era, where money increases the gap between clubs, that chance is less plausible than, say, 20 years ago. Why betting on Serie A first-time winners isn’t a good idea either is because quite a few clubs have already taken the title once:

Juventus, Inter, AC Milan, Torino, Bologna, Lazio, AS Roma, Napoli, Verona, Sampdoria and Cagliari. A first-time winner bet is basically betting on Atalanta Bergamo. Based on the 2021/2022 season, it might be better to wait another year for this.

Memorable Serie A Scudetti

Italian football is still sometimes labelled as boring. Catenaccio football. The Italian word for ‘latch’. A style of play where giving little away is at least as important as scoring.

How extreme you can take this style of play was shown in AC Milan‘s 1993/1994 championship. After 34 rounds of play, the club had 36 goals. No fewer than 19 times the score was 1-0 on the scoreboard. Five times they won 2-0. A few more draws were 0-0 and the highlight of the season was a 2-3 win against Sampdoria. Five goals in a game; unprecedented!

Some people see Italian defence as an art form, others despise it. Attractive to watch? No. But it has earned the Italians plenty of prizes internationally. And smart bettors plenty of returns when betting on Serie A teams.

History

Serie A goes back to 1929, when one Mussolini was in power in Italy. The first 20 years of Serie A can therefore be called eventful to say the least. In season 1948/49, when fascism had been driven out, Torino FC lost their entire squad in a plane crash. The title was then awarded to the club in memoriam.

Things would never calm down in Serie A. It is not the country for that. Scandals, mismanagement and bankruptcies; Serie A has a rich history in this respect. In 2006, the biggest scandal came to light, where it was revealed that players and referees were manipulated by football bosses. Juventus did not look pretty and were denied the 2005 and 2006 titles.

Juventus, Lazio Roma and AC Fiorentina were relegated to Serie B. The old lady was also denied Champions League participation that season. To ensure that clubs do not return to Serie A too soon, they start the season with penalties. AC Milan, also a suspect in the case, got off graciously with exclusion from European football participation and 15 penalty points in Serie A.

We shortchange Serie A when we only talk about scandals and corruption. During the 1980s and 1990s, Serie A was the league where you saw football as you had never seen it before. Three footballers had a big part in this success: Ruud Gullit, Marco van Basten and the best of all time: Diego Maradona. For those who haven’t had the pleasure to watch him play back then, do yourself a favour and check out footage on YouTube. You’ll instantly feel the magic that was Diego… And Serie A.