3 reasons you should be watching Serie A this season

Serie A is back and better than ever before. Here are three reasons why you should be watching Italy’s top flight this season. 

What did you watch this weekend? If you’re a soccer fan, you likely indulged in the Premier League. England’s top flight remains a favorite among a growing segment of U.S. fans.

Maybe you tuned into Spain’s La Liga, but the disappointment of Lionel Messi leaving Barcelona recently for PSG may have left you wanting more. That takes us to France’s Ligue 1, where everyone awaits Messi’s debut.

If you’re like me, you purchased the Paramount+ package and watched Serie A. Italy’s pro soccer league was the best in the world back in the late 1980s and early ’90s when greats like Diego Maradona and Ruud Gullit played there.

The league fell on hard times in the ensuing years and a match-fixing scandal in the mid-2000s didn’t help matters. The money from TV revenue and marketing rights migrated elsewhere (primarily England, Germany and Spain) and Serie A slumped down the list of Europe’s top five domestic competitions.

A lot has changed in recent years. Italian clubs have become competitive again in the Champions League and Italy captured the European Championship earlier this summer after the team had failed to qualify for the 2018 World Cup. Indeed, Serie A is back on top of the heap with a wide-open title race, new players and lots of drama.

Title up for grabs

The scudetto race remains wide open. Defending champions Inter Milan went on a bit of a liquidation sale this past summer. That means they are weaker, while the usual suspects, most notably the Cristiano Ronaldo-led Juventus, remains the strongest team to again win it all.

Juve isn’t the only contender to win the 18-team league. AC Milan, Atalanta, Napoli, Roma and Lazio all round out the list of clubs who can compete for both the title and the top four spots that help teams qualify for the Champions League.

New players to watch

Romelu Lukaku’s departure from Inter to Chelsea had Nerazzurri fans in mourning and Serie A critics pointing out that the league was on the decline. Not at all. Inter still has plenty of offensive firepower (they defeated Genoa 4-0 on Saturday), while new players have flooded into the league over the past few weeks.

The player to watch, above all, is Roma’s Tammy Abraham. The former Chelsea striker signed with the club this month and made a memorable debut this past Sunday with two assists in Roma’s 2-1 win against Fiorentina.

Americans play there!

Serie A, for the longest time, was a league where Americans did not play. The reasons are varied, but players preferred England to Italy. The language and culture played a big part, but it was also the indifference of Italian clubs to U.S.-based players that became a factor.

That changed last season when Juventus signed Weston McKennie and more Americans bought up Serie A teams. This season, there are a total of four Americans in Serie A. The list include right back Bryan Reynolds at Roma and the midfield duo of Gianluca Busio and Tanner Tessmann at newly-promoted Venezia.

There’s plenty for everyone on the tasty menu of options Serie A is serving up this season. Italian soccer is indeed back and better than it has been in years.