Napoli celebrates, the victory over Cagliari gives the fourth scudetto

On the night of May 23, in the last stage of the championship, Napoli broke away from Inter and sewed the Scudetto on their shirts for the fourth time in their century-old history (the club was founded in 1926). A goal by the new Neapolitan hero Scott Mc Tominay unlocked the match at the Maradona, after the Nerazzurri had taken the lead in Como, temporarily overtaking Napoli in first place. In the second half, Romelu Lukaku on the counter-attack closed the accounts (while Inter scored the second goal in Como). In the end, the identical score of 2-0 for Napoli-Cagliari and Como-Inter left Aurelio De Laurentiis' club with a very heavy point advantage in the standings.

The New York Times on May 19th defined Serie A as the "most enraging, engaging and entertaining league" in the Old Continent. The "most exasperating, engaging and entertaining" championship in the Old Continent. The 2024/25 tournament with Napoli and Inter outdoing themselves and granting unexpected chances to their opponents, match points almost all wasted, is undoubtedly unique in the panorama of the major European football leagues, in which the title was awarded well in advance.

Serie A, to be honest, has had a single dominator in recent years, but at the top of Italian football in the last five years there have been four different clubs, compared to the three of the Spanish Liga and the two of the Premier, Bundesliga and Ligue 1. An uncertainty that has also marked the fight for survival and qualification for European competitions, especially the Champions League, until the last day. Speaking of which, it is worth noting a newfound competitiveness of Italian teams in recent seasons, with Inter reaching two Champions League finals in three years (Milan the semi-final), Atalanta winning the Europa League, the finals of Rome (won) and Fiorentina in the Conference League (unfortunately lost). The so-called national "competitive balance" is the result of constant improvement of Italian clubs, after the crisis caused by the pandemic, and not of a lowering of the level of sporting competition.

Of course, there are still structural problems to address, from excessive debt (even here, however, at least for the top clubs, the trend is towards an erosion of the debt mass), to the strategies to be strengthened for the definitive international relaunch of the Serie A brands, to the atavistic issue of infrastructure.

The 2024/25 championship was characterized by a forceful return of spectators to the stands, with over 90% of the stands filled (a percentage that for Serie A until recently had stood at 70%).