Italian Serie A

Serie A (Lega Nazionale Professionisti Serie A) is the name of the top Italian football league and has existed since 1898 and since 1929 as structured today. Since 1961, the winner gets the trophy called Coppa Campioni d'Italia. When the league was established it included 18 clubs, but since when it has decreased and expanded many times: from 16 as minimum to 21 clubs as maximum (since the 2004-2005 season, 20 clubs has been included). Today the division is also referred to Lega Serie A, or more commonly only Serie A.

History

An Italian National Championship was decided already in 1898 and Genoa Cricket & Athletic Club became the first champions, although the whole competition was decided upon one match.

For some more than two decades, the competition was divided into regional groups. During the period 1922-1929 different arrangement was tried until several interregional divisions was merging into one. At this time was also Serie B, the second highest division introduced. This coincided with a period in Italian football when the leading Fascist party dictated that no foreigners were allowed in the football league. This was counterweighed to a high degree by the import of Italian ancestries, so-called rimpatriato, from South America.

In 1964, the league became the Lega Serie A when the Lega Calcio was founded in replace of Italian Federal Football Association.

Scudetti, which is Italian for “little shield” has since the 1924 been a shield (i.e. logo) been awarded to the winner to wear on the shirt. The team winning the Serie A is often referred to “winning the scudetto”.

League system

Serie A is the top level of the Italian football league system. The second division was founded in 1929 and is known as Serie B. Some years later a third tier, Serie C was founded. An overview of the current national league system is presented in table 1.

Table 1. Italian football tiers

Club	Tier
Serie A	1
Serie B	2
Serie C	3

Below the third tier the league is played on semi- or non-professional levels with regional divisions.

Qualification for European Cups

The top three teams in Seria A are qualified for the Champions League (one place also goes to the winner of the Coppa Italia) and the teams that are placed 3-6 will also get the chance to play in European Cups.

Relegations

Since the season 2006-2007 the three teams placed at the bottom of the table (places 18-20) have been relegated to Serie B. In the 2005-2006 season only two teams were relegated. Before that two teams (places 18-20) were relegated directly and two teams (places 17-18) would go to playoffs consisting of a two-legged game in which the winner avoided relegation.

Stats

Teams with most titles

Statistics of all Italian clubs that have won the top division, concerning the period 1929-2023.

Table 2. Clubs and Italian Football Championship titles

Club	Titles	1st title
Juventus	36	1905
Milan	19	1901
Internazionale	19	1952-53
Genoa	9	1898
Pro Vercelli	7	1908
Torino	7	1926-27
Bologna	7	1924-25
Roma	3	1941-42
Napoli	3	1986-87
Fiorentina	2	1955-56
Lazio	2	1973-74
Casele	1	1913-14
Novese	1	1921-22
Cagliari	1	1969-70
Hellas Verona	1	1984-85
Sampdoria	1	1990-91

In addition, Juventus won the league in season 2004-05, but the title was later revoked.

Notice that seasons before the establishment of Serie A in 1929 is also included. Genoa CFC for example, won all their titles before 1929.

Teams with most Serie A participation

Statistics of the Italian clubs that have participated more than 50 times in Serie A during the period 1929-2020.

Table 3. Clubs and league participation

Club	Participation
Internazionale	89
Juventus	88
Roma	88
Milan	87
Fiorentina	83
Lazio	78
Torino	77
Napoli	75
Bologna	74
Atalanta	60
Genoa	54

Between the first season and the last, in total 67 clubs have participated in top division of the Spanish league.

Numbers of teams included

Overview of the number of teams that have participated from season to season.

Table 4. Number of participating teams

Seasons	Teams
2004/2005–	20
1988/1999–2003/2004	18
1967/1968–1987/1988	16
1952/1953–1966/1967	18
1948/1949–1951/1952	20
1947/1948	21
1946/1947	20
1934/1935–1942/1943	16
1929/1930–1933/1934	18

Due to the World War II, no seasons were played during the period 1944-1945.

Audience

Capacity of Serie A stadiums

The capacity of the teams participating in Serie A is shown i table 5. San Siro, where both Internazionale and Milan plays, has the highest capacity with over 80,00 seats. The average capacity in the league is 39,410.

Table 5. The stadium capacities in the Serie A season 2018-2019

Team	Stadium name	Capacity
Atalanta	Atleti Azzurri d'Italia	21,300
Bologna	Renato Dall'Ara	38,279
Cagliari	Sardegna Arena	16,233
Chievo	Stadio Marc'Antonio Bentegodi	38,402
Empoli	Stadio Carlo Castellani	16,284
Fiorentina	Stadio Artemio	43,147
Frosinone	Stadio Benito Stirpe	16,227
Genoa	Stadio Luigi Ferraris	36,685
Internazionale	San Siro	80,018
Juventus	Juventus Stadium	41,507
Lazio	Stadio Olimpico	72,698
Milan	San Siro	80,018
Napoli	Stadio San Paolo	60,240
Parma	Stadio Ennio Tardini	27,906
Roma	Stadio Olimpico	72,698
Sampdoria	Stadio Luigi Ferraris	36,685
Sassuolo	Mapei Stadium	23,717
SPAL	Stadio Paolo Mazza	13,020
Torino	Stadio Olimpico di Torino	27,994
Udinese	Stadio Friuli-Dacia Arena	25,132

Players

Top goalscorers

The league's all-time leading goalscorer is Silvio Piola who played in Cagliari Calcio and who's career lasted from 1929 to 1952. In thís period he scored 274 times in Serie A.

Next to Piola, Francesco Totti is the top goalscorer with 250 goals between 1992 and 2017.

Francesco Totti in Roma uniform.

Other notable goalscorer in the league are Gunnar Nordahl, José Altafini, Giuseppe Meazza, Antonio Di Natale and Roberto Baggio. They all scored over 200 times.

Players with most appearances

The player with most appearances is the defender Paulo Maldini who played for Milan between 1984 and 2009 and was recorded for 647 matches. As writing, the goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon is still active and will probably take over the record from Maldini in a relative near future. Buffon has 644 appearances in November 2019.

There are four players with more than 600 appearances in Serie A, the other two besides Maldini and Buffon are Francesco Totti and Javier Zanetti. Zanetti holds the record with most games among foreign players.

By Oscar Anderson

References:
The Ball is Round: A Global History of Football – David Goldblatt (2008)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serie_A
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scudetto
http://www.legaseriea.it/en/lega-calcio/history
Image source:
Roberto Vicario