Serie A preview: defending champs Inter is the red-hot favorite

Signore e signori, Serie A is gearing up for another exciting season! The season commences on August 17th, when 20 teams will start with the dream of winning the Scudetto. Inter Milan is the defending champion, but their work is cut out for them, as no team has won back-to-back titles since Juventus in the 2019/20 season.

Who’s the favorite?

As the defending champions, it must be Inter, right? The Milan club blew the competition out of the water last season, finishing 19 points clear of local rivals AC Milan. Inter lost just twice, scored 89 goals, and conceded just 22.

Simone Inzaghi’s Inter is the team to beat and has made shrewd summer signings. Polish midfielder Piotr Zieliński joined on a free transfer from Napoli, and they also grabbed Porto’s Iranian forward Mehdi Taremi.

Perhaps more critical is that Inter managed to keep hold of its core. The most high-profile player who left the club was forward Alexis Sánchez, whose contract ended, but the Chilean was mostly used as a substitute anyway.

Inter’s arch-rivals AC Milan and Juventus look to upset the defending champions. Juventus will be led by manager Thiago Motta, who guided Bologna to the Champions League last season and has added midfielders Douglas Luiz and Khephren Thuram to their squad.

Milan also has a new manager, Paulo Fonseca. Their two biggest signings are striker Álvaro Morata and center-back Strahinja Pavlović. It’s worth noting that Morata comes off a very successful last 12 months as he helped Spain win the Euros this summer and scored at least 15 league goals for the first time since the 2016/17 season.

Still, Inter goes into the season as the red-hot favorites.

Who’s the dark horse?

Napoli. The Little Donkeys—as some fans call them—will not play in any European competition for the first time since the 2009/10 season. Last season, Napoli finished tenth, and the absence of continental action might work in their favor as it helps keep the squad fresh and avoid injuries caused by a taxing schedule.

President Aurelio De Laurentiis wants to avoid last year’s troubles on the pitch and on the sidelines. Last season, Napoli had three managers: Rudi Garcia (who was fired already in November), Walter Mazzarri (who lasted three months), and the club’s former assistant manager and technical coach, Francesco Calzona.

The fans hope that Antonio Conte is the right man for the job. His CV is impressive: the Italian won the Serie A with Juventus and Inter and led Chelsea to the Premier League crown in 2017.

Conte has had plenty of time to lick his wounds after getting sacked from Tottenham Hotspur in March 2023. Napoli has yet to be particularly active on the market, but signing left-back Leonardo Spinazzola on a free transfer and splashing out 35 million Euros for center-back Alessandro Buongiorno have been seen as good moves.

Napoli’s most crucial player stayed put. Victor Osimhen’s relationship with the club has been extremely rocky, but last season, the Nigerian was their top scorer, amassing 17 goals across all competitions. Should the striker regain his 2022/23 form, when he shone with 26 league goals, Napoli has a good chance of giving richer clubs a run for their money.

Just like they did in Osimhen’s breakthrough season when they dominated Serie A and finished 16 points above second-place Lazio.

Who will be relegated?

Venezia will mostly rely on the same group of players that got them out of the Serie B after two years. The signings of center-back Giorgio Altare and midfielder Gaetano Oristanio do add some quality to the squad, but it’s still hard to see them not falling back to where they came from.

Empoli will start their fourth consecutive season in Serie A after narrowly beating the drop last season. They managed to hold onto their place in Italy’s top flight by a mere point, although the relegation battle was awfully tight. Only three points separated the 13th-placed Hellas Verona and 18th-placed Frosinone.

Like Venezia, Empoli’s transfer window has been quiet without significant additions. To make matters worse, they did lose three important players: Răzvan Marin, Bartosz Bereszyński and Sebastiano Luperto.

While experts predict Venezia and Empoli will surely go down, it’s a neck-and-neck battle over who will join them. Cagliari, Verona, and Parma are the prime candidates, but our vote goes to Parma, the reigning Serie B champion.

Manager Fabio Pecchia has done a stellar job at the helm. Still, he will face an uphill battle to keep them in Serie A.

Unlike Cagliari and Verona, their squad will remain similar to last season’s, with five players returning from loan duties. The only notable addition is goalkeeper Zion Suzuki from Belgian side Sint-Truiden. A hefty transfer fee—by Parma’s standards, at least—of 7.5 million Euros shows that the American-born Japanese international will be a very important piece to Pecchia’s team.

Although stability and cohesion can be essential, Parma didn’t run away with the Serie B title. A step up to run with the big dogs with close to the same team seems impossible.