The Summer Calcio Took a Backseat to F1 and Tennis

Put down your Aperol Spritz, people. The Summer of Italian Sporting Supremacy is officially wrapping up, and we have to talk about Serie A again. It has been a wild couple of months if you follow sports in the boot.

While the national football team was busy missing yet another men's World Cup, Andrea Kimi Antonelli became the first Italian driver in 20 years to win in Formula One. He capped off his summer by extending his championship lead at the Belgian Grand Prix. Over in London, Jannik Sinner was busy defending his men's singles crown at Wimbledon.

Italy ended up sitting on top of the medal table at the European Athletics Championships and grabbed second at the European Aquatics Championships. Manila Esposito even snatched floor exercise gold at the European Women's Artistic Gymnastics Championships. Football was practically an afterthought in the local papers.

Glancing over the front pages of La Gazzetta dello Sport all week, the transfer gossip took a backseat to a massive medal parade. But now August 20 has arrived, and calcio is creeping back into the room like a guy trying to slide into the VIP section uninvited. As The Guardian's Serie A preview points out, the nation's third apocalypse has officially passed.

What do we find waiting for us on the pitch? The usual Serie A soap opera is back in full swing. We have a managerial carousel that looks like a chaotic game of musical chairs, while an Inter Milan machine sits at the top ready to turn Italian football into a single-party state.

Inter Milan: The Only Functional Superpower Left

Let’s cut through the noise and talk about the actual title race. Cristian Chivu walked into the San Siro last season and took the Scudetto by 11 points like he was taking candy from a toddler. It was an absolute mugging of the competition.

Sure, Inter sold right wing-back Denzel Dumfries to Real Madrid this summer. Losing a starting wide menace hurts, even if nagging injuries limited him to 15 league starts last year. But look at how the Nerazzurri front office responded to the hole.

They signed Djed Spence to fill the vacancy, while bringing in the impressive Andy Diouf to push him for minutes. To replace departing veteran defenders Francesco Acerbi and Stefan de Vrij, Inter welcomed back Benjamin Pavard and snatched actual Premier League winner John Stones. That is ridiculous squad depth.

They are even in active talks to raid Liverpool for Curtis Jones just to add extra bite to their midfield. Upfront, they boast Lautaro Martínez, Marcus Thuram, Francesco Pio Esposito, and Ange-Yoan Bonny. That is not just an attacking unit; that is a cheat code.

No team in Italy has successfully defended a Serie A title this entire decade. Yet, Chivu’s squad looks so far ahead of the pack that the rest of the league is fighting for secondary prizes. Unless their goalkeeping situation implodes, bet on Inter cruising to back-to-back titles.

The Milan Gamble and Como's Accounting Tricks

Over at AC Milan, Ruben Amorim has arrived from Manchester to attempt a high-stakes redemption arc. Pre-season performances have looked encouraging for the Portuguese boss. However, Milan fans have trauma from this exact storyline.

Cast your mind back to August 2024 when Paulo Fonseca strutted in speaking about Scudetto ambitions, only to get sacked by December. Amorim needs quick results to avoid that same chopping block. Having 39-year-old Luka Modric steering the midfield certainly helps the cause.

To supply Amorim with firepower, Milan dropped a massive €74m on Paris Saint-Germain forward Gonçalo Ramos. That is an eye-watering sum for a striker who started just 13 Ligue 1 games last season and 12 the year before. You are paying elite superstar money for a guy who spent three years on the bench.

Granted, Ramos maintained the third-best goals-to-minutes ratio of any under-25 player in Europe's top five leagues over the past three seasons. Amorim insists his countryman has the specific movement to unlock deep defensive blocks. Still, dropping that much cash on a rotation player is a huge gamble.

Meanwhile, Como is pulling off the most hilarious financial magic trick in European football. They just paid €60m to bring back Nico Paz from Real Madrid. But Real Madrid only bought him back from Como in June via a cheap buy-back clause, only to flip him right back with yet another buy-back clause included.

It is practically an overelaborate, multi-million-euro loan extension wrapped in legal jargon. You have to hand it to Como after their surprising fourth-place finish last season. As highlighted in The Guardian's transfer analysis, keeping Paz and adding Chelsea’s Trevoh Chalobah makes them a legitimate threat. Their young core of Martin Baturina, Máximo Perrone, and Lucas Da Cunha is rising fast.

Napoli's Nostalgia Trip and the Rest of the Chaos

Over in Naples, owner Aurelio De Laurentiis watched his squad finish second under Antonio Conte and made a classic De Laurentiis decision. He hired Massimiliano Allegri to take over the bench. Allegri replacing Conte feels like swapping an espresso shot for a warm glass of milk.

Allegri’s return comes with serious emotional baggage for Napoli supporters. He hurt the city when his Juventus side snatched the title from Napoli in 2018, not to mention his playing days for the Partenopei side that finished dead last in 1998. Reminded of his past sins at his unveiling, Allegri offered a classic response.

blockquote>"That's why I'm here, to repay things."

De Laurentiis keeps calling Allegri an "aziendalista"—a company man. That is corporate code for a manager who will not complain when management refuses to buy shiny new toys. Napoli fielded the oldest average starting XI in Serie A last year, and they are pinning their title hopes on Kevin De Bruyne staying healthy. Good luck with that plan.

If you think Napoli sounds like a circus, take a look at Lazio. They appointed Gennaro Gattuso after he failed to guide Italy to the World Cup. Gattuso immediately opened his Rome tenure by getting knocked out of the Coppa Italia by second-tier Mantova. You cannot make this stuff up.

Over at Juventus, the front office shelled out €41m for Randal Kolo Muani after he averaged a goal every two games on loan. That fee is a bit steep, but adding Bologna defender Jhon Lucumí alongside teenage talents Kerim Alajbegovic and Jeff Ekhator gives Juve an intriguing reboot. Meanwhile, Gian Piero Gasperini enters his second year at Roma with mobile forward Santiago Castro joining from Bologna.

Down in Florence, Fiorentina launched a full-scale spending spree under new manager Fabio Grosso. They invested over €100m into young talent, headlined by 20-year-old World Cup star Christ Inao Oulaï from Côte d’Ivoire. Meanwhile, 31-year-old former Mikel Arteta assistant Carlos Cuesta returns to Parma after dragging them to 13th last season despite scoring a measly 28 goals.

Torino is giving Ignazio Abate his first shot at top-flight management, building around 19-year-old starlet Alessio Cacciamani. Cagliari is trying a bizarre recipe of green teenagers alongside grizzled veterans Harry Winks and Yerry Mina. And at Udinese, manager Kosta Runjaic explicitly invoked Sisyphus when asked about the club replacing its entire roster every single summer. Pushing that boulder uphill every August sounds exhausting, but Runjaic keeps grinding.

At the bottom end of the table, Lecce looks primed for another terrifying relegation fight after placing 17th. Newly promoted Frosinone boss Massimiliano Alvini insists his squad will keep playing aggressive, front-footed football. Venezia is back for their third top-flight attempt in seven years, while Monza brought back battle-tested Serie A veterans Patrick Cutrone, Matteo Pessina, and Andrea Petagna through the playoffs.

Sassuolo might struggle after losing Grosso and selling key defender Tarik Muharemovic to Leeds. Italian football spent the summer watching tennis players and race car drivers hog the spotlight. But once the referee blows the whistle this weekend, Serie A’s beautiful, chaotic soap opera will have everyone hooked all over again.