Serie A is the professional league competition that brings together teams at the helm of the Italian football league system. The winner gets the Scudetto and the Serie A champions trophy (Coppa Campioni d’Italia).
The round-robin tournament is organized by Lega Serie A. It is considered one of the world’s best football leagues. Other football literature refers to the competition as the most defensively sound and tactical of all national leagues. The International Federation of Football History & Statistics (IFFHS) ranked it the strongest national league, while the UEFA’s league coefficient rated it the third overall among European leagues.
Format
Most of the competition’s history has had 16 or 18 clubs fighting for the top honour. However, since the 2004-05 season, the league has featured 20 teams. The tournament’s season starts in August and ends in May. Each team plays the other 19 teams twice, once at home and the other game away.
At the end of the season, the four leading teams get an automatic qualification to the UEFA Champions League. The fifth team qualifies to play in the UEFA Europa League along with the winner of Coppa Italia.
The sixth team often qualifies for the UEFA Europa Conference League’s preliminary round, the third tier of European club football.
The last three teams get relegated to Serie B, the second-tier league of Italian football.
Status
Serie A has a reputable standing among the leagues of the world. Juventus, A.C. Milan (Associazione Calcio Milan), and Internazionale are among the world’s most famous clubs and founding members of G-14. This now nonexistent organization is comprised of the significant and most prestigious football clubs in Europe.
The league is only second to La Liga in terms of the number of players that have won the prestigious Ballon d’Or while playing for its teams. Juventus, the league’s most successful club, is sixth and twelfth in Europe and the world, respectively, for winning the most official titles.
Clubs
A total of 67 clubs have competed in Serie A since the league’s inception. In the 89 seasons that the league has been played, only Internazionale has played in all the seasons.
Juventus has won the league the most number of times, 36. The closest contender to this crown, Internazionale, has lifted the league cup 18 times, the same as A.C. Milan. Genoa has been crowned champions nine times, while Torino, Bologna, and Pro Vercelli have been champions seven times each. Roma has won the league three times while Napoli, Lazio, and Fiorentina have lifted the winner’s trophy twice each.
League Records
The illustrious league has seen an equally incredible wealth of talent. Gianluigi Buffon leads the pack with the most appearances, 654. He is followed by Paolo Maldini and Francesco Totti with 647 and 619, respectively.
Silvio Piola, regarded as one of his generation’s greatest forwards, is the best scorer in Serie A ever with 274 goals from 537 appearances. Francesco Totti is second with 250 goals, while Swedish Gunnar Nordahl scored 225 goals.
