In 2014/15 Juventus won their 4th consecutive Scudetto together with Copa Italia. They reached the final in Champions League where they lost against Barcelona. Will they manage to win their 5th Serie A in a row this season?
Transfers to and from Juventus this summer
After last season, Italian veteran player Andrea Pirlo left Juventus for Major League Soccer and New York. Carlos Tevez was another heavy loss. He left for play with Boca Juniors in South America. However, young striker Paulo Dybala will join Alvaro Morata on top in Tevez absence. Also, Croatian attacker Mario Mandzukic joined Juventus from Atletico Madrid this year. The midfield looks stable with names like the talented Paul Pogba and Roberto Pereyra. Many are hoping that Kingley Coleman will have his breakthrough in his outer midfield position this season. Hopefully he can learn from German veteran Sami Khedira who joined Juventus this season as a free transfer. Khedira was a part of Germany’s gold winning team in FIFA World Cup 2014. As usual, the now 37-year old Gianluigi Buffon is guarding the net.
Roma is the biggest rival
Last year Juventus won Serie A 17 points before Roma and they are the favourites this year as well. Roma has placed second in the Italian League two years in a row. They won their last Scudetto in 2001 and has finished second six times since then. They have got reinforcements in players like Edin Dzeko and Mohammed Sallah this year but the question is whether they can challenge “the old lady” Juventus. Roma’s veteran Fransesco Totti is making his 24th season in Serie A this year. Another contender is Napoli who lost coach Rafa Benitez to Real Madrid but have got an interesting replacement in Maurizio Sarri who performed miracles with Empoli. Napoli have three new players that might be the reinforcement they need to stop letting in so many goals (they let in 54 goals in Serie A last season, that’s the highest number of allowed goals among the teams at the top of the league): Goalkeeper Pepe Reina from Bayern Munich, Allan from Udinese and Calcio and Mirko Valdifiori. Last years 3rd place team and Copa Italia finalist Lazio might be worth to watch out for this year as well. Inter has dropped like a rock since Jose Mourinho left the club but head coach Roberto Mancini have done some good transfers this year, such as Jovetic and Geoffrey Kondogbia. Milan’s new coach, Sinisa Mihajlovic is placing his money on offensive players like Carlos Bacca from Sevilla and Andrea Bertolacci from Roma. Some rumors place Swedish attacker Zlatan Ibrahimovic in Milan this year, but he still has a year left on his contract with Paris SG.
As things are now, chances are Juventus will win their 5th consecutive Scudetto without too much fuzz. However, we are willing to place a bet on Napoli as the top contender thanks to their coach Sarri. Serie A starts August 23.
