Why Serie A is the most entertaining league in the world

We’ve grown accustomed to title races that are just between a couple of teams in Europe’s top leagues. Ligue 1 and the Bundesliga both have one dominant power, and we’re just hoping for a single challenger every season. La Liga has a well-established duopoly. The Premier League is looking pretty spicy this year, with Liverpool making it a three-horse race following some key injuries to Manchester City and Arsenal.

And then there’s Serie A. Juventus was comfortably on top for several years, but the aging of their legendary back three and goalkeeper coupled with some financial mismanagement has opened the door wide open. Inter Milan won the title running away from everyone last season, but such a thing does not appear to be on the cards this campaign.

There are 6 teams that appear to be pretty much inseparable in quality so far this season. The team at the top of the table is the one with the weakest underlying numbers. Here’s the actual points of each of Serie A’s contenders next to their expected points according to Understat.

I think I could be talked into believing any of them is the “true” favorite, but all of them have some kind of red flag in their performances as well. Here’s something interesting about all of them.

Napoli

Some people said these guys had the worst transfer window ever, but things are going well for Napoli so far. Especially for indefensible signing Romelu Lukaku, who has 3 goals and 4 assists in just 5 games.

Nobody’s ever accused manager Antonio Conte of being unable to coach defensive shape, and this is exactly what I’d expect a Conte team’s defensive radar to look like. Great at preventing all types of shots with insanely low PPDA, just letting opponents pass the ball around in their own half to their heart’s content.

But the attack has been lucky. Napoli has had 22 shots between 0.1 and 0.5 xG. Their xG on those is 4.11. They’ve scored 11 of them.

And about Lukaku’s hot start? One of his goals is a penalty, and the other two have come from 0.95 xG, and the assists have come from 1.11 xA. But now I’m just being the Fun Police.

Inter Milan

The team that finished on 95 points last season and is not playing poorly this season should probably be considered the favorite. But Inter have had some shaky results, most notably their 2-1 defeat to AC Milan in their “home” derby. They’ve failed to beat two teams in the bottom three, Genoa and Monza. Their best result, a 4-0 win over Atalanta, was just 1.63 to 1.23 on xG.

Marcus Thuram has gone nuts with 7 goals from 2.71 xG. While I don’t think he’ll keep up that level of overperformance, he does appear to be uniquely good at scoring headers.

My favorite player on this team is Alessandro Bastoni, who’s more of a deep-lying playmaker than a center back. Who needs to do things like “win the ball” when you’re an elite dribbler and long-range passer?

Lazio

I extremely did not see Lazio’s success coming. Their new manager, Marco Baroni, is a 61-year-old who spent the first 20 years of his managerial career in Serie C and B, never really pushing for the top flight. But he won a couple promotions in more recent times, and last season finished 13th in Serie A as manager of Hellas Verona.

He has Lazio playing a pretty well-balanced, no-nonsense 4-2-3-1 system where the central attacking midfielder is a bit more of a runner and goal-scorer than a playmaker. Everyone looks like they understand their role. Arsenal loanee Nuno Tavares is balling at left back, leading the league with 5 assists.

But the real breakout star has been MLS alumni Taty Castellanos, who is just one of the best all-around strikers in the league at the moment.

I’m not sure if he really is having a breakout season at age 26 or if this is fake, but he looks awesome when I watch him. And I could say similar things about most of this team. It has a real island of misfit toys feel, but it’s working.

Juventus

We’ve addressed Juventus’ defense here in the context of the UEFA Champions League, and it’s still looking great. They had a disappointing 1-1 draw with Cagliari at the weekend, but only conceded 0.3 open play xG. Even with Bremer out injured, Juve’s defense is still the best in the league so far this season.

But their attack… oof. Dušan Vlahović is doing everything he can for the team with a very respectable 0.48 xG+xA per 90, but there is just no one else contributing. This is relegation fodder stuff. Awful.

The winger group of Kenan Yıldız, Nico González, Samuel Mbangula and Francisco Conceição have 0.87 xG combined. Ick.

AC Milan

Milan’s attack is really nice! Christian Pulisic has been the team’s most consistent performer. Tammy Abraham looks really promising. Rafael Leão’s shot selection and finishing have been off, but he’s still putting up the same great dribbling and assist numbers. I do not think this team has any problem scoring goals.

Their defense has also been unlucky by xG so far, conceding 9 goals from 6.88 xG. But if you look at the locations and xG of the goals they’ve conceded, it feels dead wrong to refer to them as unlucky.

It’s tempting to say “if they keep up this xG differential their results will improve,” but you just can’t give up a shot of that quality every single game.

Atalanta

Gian Piero Gasperini will never change. If you’ve followed Serie A for a bit, it’s the same as it ever was. 3-4-1-2, all gas, no brakes.

Atalanta’s extremely ambitious attacking style creates a ton of high quality chances. Mateo Retegui and Ademola Lookman are converting them at a solid clip. Their attack does not seem to have suffered one bit from the departure of star playmaker Teun Koopmeiners.

But the defense looks bad. While I think this radar looks like a cool bat, I don’t think it’s going to summon a billionaire superhero who beats up all the bad guys.

Atalanta’s set piece defending, in particular, has been appalling. They’ve also given away 4 penalties in 7 games. They’re currently playing career wingback Sead Kolasinac at left center back and career midfield Marten de Roon at right center back, so I’m not sure if anything is going to change.

These teams are all interesting and concerning in entirely different ways. A league that has 6 teams that could all be described as very good, but flawed, is a fun league. The Scudetto race should go down to the wire, and the two teams in this group that don’t make Champions League are going to be heartbroken about it.

If you enjoyed this newsletter, we’d appreciate it if you would forward it to a friend. If you’re that friend, welcome! You can subscribe to The Transfer Flow here. We also have a podcast where we go in depth on transfer news and rumours every week. We’re on YouTube here, and you can subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify by searching for “The Transfer Flow Podcast.”