By Tomi Rantanen
Another celebration in Turin
There hasn’t been a real challenge for the Serie A title for the past five seasons, as Juventus have clinched the championship every year since 2010/11 season. Almost every year at some point it seems that this is the season Juventus is pushed aside, be it by AS Roma, Napoli or Inter Milan, but in the end La Vecchia Signora always prevails.
AccuScore’s season simulations support the previously mentioned fact, but let’s see how the rest of it will most likely play out.
Here is the season simulation for Italian Serie A for 2016/17:
|
1
|
Juventus
|
90
|
|
2
|
Internazionale
|
80
|
|
3
|
Milan
|
71
|
|
4
|
Lazio
|
64
|
|
5
|
Roma
|
63
|
|
6
|
Fiorentina
|
61
|
|
7
|
Sampdoria
|
61
|
|
8
|
Napoli
|
61
|
|
9
|
Sassuolo
|
51
|
|
10
|
Genoa
|
50
|
|
11
|
Atalanta
|
49
|
|
12
|
Empoli
|
48
|
|
13
|
Bologna
|
42
|
|
14
|
Udinese
|
40
|
|
15
|
Torino
|
36
|
|
16
|
Chievo
|
35
|
|
17
|
Cagliari
|
35
|
|
18
|
Palermo
|
33
|
|
19
|
Crotone
|
32
|
|
20
|
Pescara
|
28
|
Juventus lost Paul Pogba to Manchester United and Alvaro Morata back to Real Madrid, but acquired the likes of Marko Pjaca, Mehdi Benatia and Mario Lemina but most importantly Gonzalo Higuain (Napoli) and Miralem Pjanic (Roma) – hence making their competitors weaker in the process. There’s no stopping Juventus this season either, but the Milan teams are in contest followed by Roma duo of Lazio and AS.
Last season’s runner up Napoli replaced Higuain instantly with Ajax and Polish national side striker Arkadiusz Milik, but according to simulations that’s not quite enough to repeat the success of 2015/16. With all the positions from 4th to 8th predicted within three points, the fight for European qualification will be fierce until the final whistle of the season.
The bottom of the table sees two of three newly promoted teams, Crotone and Pescara go down once again. Both teams are minnows by all standards and very unlikely to be able to boost their squads to stay up, even with loans from other Serie A teams. Palermo finished the last season on a high note, but were only saved from relegation by one point. That’s unlikely to happen again, and down goes Palermo.
