Here we go again. Serie A featured last season's best sprint to the finish, with a tight title race, an intense melee for the European spots, and a five-team relegation scrap. Napoli emerged as champions, Juventus snagged the last Champions League spot, and Empoli and Venezia got shot into hell (Serie B). It was a thrilling conclusion to a thrilling season. This season has started much in the same way both at the bottom and especially at the top, where the Italian league looks set to have yet another season-long battle royal.
Through nine matches, Italy's top seven teams are separated by just six points, the second-tightest margin in Europe's top five leagues (France's Ligue 1 has a gap of only four points, but the financial and talent gap between Paris Saint-Germain and the rest robs that league of any real intrigue even when the Parisians don't win). Defending champion Napoli is still on top with 21 points, though it shares that spot with Roma, now helmed by former Atalanta manager and hipster darling Gian Piero Gasperini. Milans Internazionale and AC are right behind with 18 points each, and then Como (16 points) and Bologna (15) have the last two European spots in their grasp at the moment.
That's only six teams listed, and that's because I want to start here with the seventh-place side, Juventus. Long gone are the days of Juventus hegemony in Italy, but the Old Lady is still formidable and full of talent. However, this season has started quite poorly for Italy's most successful club. Entering Week 9, Juve was winless in eight straight matches, with five draws (three domestically, two in the Champions League) followed by three losses (two in Serie A and one against Real Madrid in Europe). That was enough to jettison Igor Tudor, who took over as manager in March of last year and guided the club to that aforementioned Champions League spot. The Croatian was replaced by interim manager Massimo Brambilla for Wednesday's 3-1 win over Udinese, but now it looks like former Italy manager Luciano Spalletti will soon be handed the reins in order to try to navigate Juve back up the table.
I'm going to only touch on Como and Bologna and their respective strong starts to the season; with all due respect, it would be quite shocking if they're still in range of the title come the new year. (Let's shout out Bologna's Riccardo Orsolini and Como's-via-Real Madrid's Nico Paz, who have scored five and four goals respectively so far. Paz especially has looked fantastic, arguably being the best player in the country, which will surely push Real to use its buyback clause on the 21-year-old midfielder in the near future.) Instead, the Milans are up next. PSG might have embarrassed Inter in the Champions League final last May, but the Nerazzurri are still loaded, and new manager/former player Christian Chivu has taken to the role well after Simone Inzaghi left to Saudi Arabia. It's concerning that Inter lost 3-1 to Napoli over the weekend, in a match that saw Lautaro Martínez get into a shouting match with Napoli manager and noted firebrand Antonio Conte.
Inter did bounce back with a thorough 3-0 demolition of Fiorentina on Wednesday, but losses to Juventus and Udinese at the start of the season have left it on the outside of the title perch for now. (Inter does have the best goal difference in Serie A as of now, fueled by the most prolific offense in the league, so there's that silver lining.) Local rivals AC Milan have had a bit of an opposite problem; after losing to Cremonese in the first match of the season, the Rossoneri ripped off four straight wins domestically, including a 2-1 win over Napoli on Sep. 28, a match in which Milan played with 10 men for half an hour but still held on for the three points. Since then, though, the club has drawn with Juventus, Pisa, and, on Tuesday, against Atalanta, despite Milan scoring in the fourth minute via Samuele Ricci.
That leaves Napoli and Roma, two flawed teams that are nonetheless setting the pace. I'll start with the defending champions, whose struggles are quite easily explained. Striker Romelu Lukaku suffered a hamstring injury in a pre-season friendly back in August and has not yet returned, which, combined with the departure of Giacomo Raspadori in the summer, has left Napoli in a bit of a scramble for goals. Sixteen strikes through nine matches is nothing to scoff at, but half of those have come from two midfielders: Frank Anguissa scored his fourth in a 1-0 win over Lecce on Tuesday, while new arrival Kevin De Bruyne scored four more. Unfortunately, and unsurprisingly for the injury-plagued Belgian, KDB tore a thigh muscle while taking a penalty over the weekend and will likely be out for several months. Without De Bruyne in midfield, Napoli looked languid against relegation fodder Lecce. Lukaku should be back before the end of the year, though, and that should help Napoli get back some of its rhythm in attack.
That leaves Roma, which has been surprising less for its results and more for its style of play. Gasperini's Atalanta tenure was marked by some of the most inventive and entertaining attacking soccer in Europe, but his Roma is on the other end of the spectrum, a defensive machine that has ground most opponents into dust. Ten goals scored in nine matches are enough when a side has only given up four total goals in those same nine matches. Four! One of those goals came on Wednesday against Parma after the game was well in hand, and another came against Fiorentina, swiftly followed by a two-goal counterpunch that handed Roma that win. That leaves two 1-0 defeats, one to Torino on Sep. 14 and one to Inter on Oct. 18, as Roma's only real blemishes in defense this season. Center backs Gianluca Mancini and Evan Ndicka have rarely put a foot wrong, and midfielder Bryan Cristante is cleaning up attacks before they get anywhere near the box. It's not the prettiest soccer, but the capital side will not care.
Where does this leave Serie A going forward? Napoli and Inter are still likely the cream of the crop here, but I wouldn't count out Roma and Milan as potential title-winners. Juventus, on the other hand, will be a bit of a wait-and-see project, especially if and when Spalletti signs on as manager; given the mid-season change, I think the Turin club will be happy enough to finish in the Champions League spots once again. And hey, maybe one of Como and Bologna stays up in these heights, which certainly isn't impossible. I also am intrigued by Gasperini's former side, as Atalanta has started the season undefeated in Serie A, but with a hilarious record of two wins and seven draws, including four in a row after drawing Milan.
Unlike every other top league in Europe, Serie A doesn't quite have a dominant team (PSG, Bayern Munich), or even a dominant duo (Real Madrid and Barcelona). The closest analogue might be the Premier League, but thanks to Liverpool's struggles and Manchester City's strangely normal performance outside of Erling Haaland's goalscoring tear, it sure looks like that race will be Arsenal's to lose. In Serie A, though, everyone struggles and everyone dominates and the roulette keeps spinning. Perhaps one of these sides will differentiate itself from the pack for long enough to cruise to the Scudetto, but if the early returns through roughly a quarter of the season bear out, it looks like the boot will have another season to watch until the very last day.
