Serie A Explained: History, Giants and How Italian Football Works
Serie A is Italy’s top football division: 20 clubs play each other home and away over 38 matches, the team with the most points wins the Scudetto, and the bottom three drop into Serie B. Juventus are the most successful club with 36 titles, ahead of Inter (21) and AC Milan (19), and Inter are the reigning champions after winning the 2025-26 title.
That’s Serie A explained in a sentence, but the league is much more than a table. It’s catenaccio and Sacchi’s pressing, Maradona’s Napoli and the nine-in-a-row Juventus, the Calciopoli scandal and some of the fiercest city derbies on earth. This guide covers how the league works, who the giants are, and how Italian football got its reputation.
Quick answer
- Serie A has 20 teams, each playing 38 matches from August to May, with three points for a win.
- The champions win the Scudetto, the shield-shaped badge worn on the shirt the following season.
- The bottom three are relegated to Serie B, and three clubs come up in their place.
- Juventus (36), Inter (21) and AC Milan (19) have won the most titles.
- Recent champions: Inter in 2023-24, Napoli in 2024-25 and Inter again in 2025-26.
- Unlike the Premier League, head-to-head results, not goal difference, are the first tiebreaker.
How Serie A works
The format
The modern single-table Serie A began in 1929-30. Before that, the Italian championship (which started in 1898) was played in regional groups and play-offs, and those older titles still count in the official records.
Today it’s simple. Twenty clubs play a double round robin: 19 matches in the girone d’andata (first half) and 19 in the girone di ritorno (second half). A win earns three points, a draw one. The team at the top after 38 games is champion. There’s an informal title for whoever leads at the halfway stage, the campione d’inverno (winter champion), but it comes with no trophy.
The Scudetto
Italians rarely say “the title”. They say the Scudetto, meaning “little shield”. It refers to the red, white and green shield badge that the champions stitch onto their shirts for the next season. Clubs also add a gold star above their crest for every ten titles. Juventus wear three, Inter wear two since their 20th title in 2024, and Milan are still waiting on their second at 19.
Relegation and promotion
The bottom three go down to Serie B. The top two in Serie B come up automatically and the third spot is decided by a play-off between the teams placed third to eighth. If you want the bigger picture of how this works across Europe, our guide to promotion and relegation covers it in detail.
Tiebreakers
This is where Serie A differs from England. If teams finish level on points, the first tiebreaker is the head-to-head record between them, then goal difference in those games, and only after that overall goal difference. In recent seasons the league has also used a one-off play-off match when teams finish level for first place or the last safe spot. Spezia and Hellas Verona met in exactly that kind of relegation play-off in 2023, and Verona won it. The details have been tweaked from season to season, so check the current regulations on the official Lega Serie A site if a tight finish looms.
European places
The top four normally qualify for the Champions League. When Italian clubs do well in Europe, the country can earn an extra Champions League place through UEFA’s European Performance Spots, which is what happened for 2024-25. Fifth place and the Coppa Italia winners usually go to the Europa League, and sixth to the Conference League, though places shuffle if the cup winner already qualified through the league. Our Champions League format guide explains how the league phase works once teams get there.
The giants of Serie A
Italian football has always been built around a handful of northern powerhouses, with Rome and Naples as the great challengers from further south.
| Club | City | Serie A titles | European Cup / Champions League wins |
|---|---|---|---|
| Juventus | Turin | 36 | 2 (1985, 1996) |
| Inter | Milan | 21 | 3 (1964, 1965, 2010) |
| AC Milan | Milan | 19 | 7 (1963, 1969, 1989, 1990, 1994, 2003, 2007) |
| Genoa | Genoa | 9 | 0 |
| Torino | Turin | 7 | 0 |
| Bologna | Bologna | 7 | 0 |
| Pro Vercelli | Vercelli | 7 | 0 |
| Napoli | Naples | 4 | 0 |
| Roma | Rome | 3 | 0 |
| Lazio | Rome | 2 | 0 |
Titles as of October 2026. Genoa, Pro Vercelli and most of Bologna’s and Torino’s titles come from the early decades of Italian football.
Juventus
The Old Lady is Italy’s biggest club by trophies and support. Owned by the Agnelli family (of Fiat) since 1923, Juventus have been the establishment club for a century. Their peak in recent memory was nine straight titles from 2011-12 to 2019-20, a run built on a famous back line of Gianluigi Buffon, Giorgio Chiellini, Leonardo Bonucci and Andrea Barzagli, and later on Cristiano Ronaldo’s goals.
Inter
Internazionale were founded in 1908 by members who broke away from Milan because they wanted to sign foreign players, hence the name. Helenio Herrera’s “Grande Inter” won back-to-back European Cups in 1964 and 1965, and José Mourinho’s side won the treble in 2010. In this decade they’ve been the strongest side in Italy, winning the league in 2021, 2024 and 2026, and reaching Champions League finals in 2023 and 2025.
AC Milan
Milan are Italy’s most successful club in Europe, with seven European Cups. Arrigo Sacchi’s team of the late 1980s, with Franco Baresi, Paolo Maldini and the Dutch trio of Ruud Gullit, Marco van Basten and Frank Rijkaard, changed how the world thought about pressing and zonal defending. Fabio Capello’s Milan then went 58 league games unbeaten between 1991 and 1993. Their most recent title came under Stefano Pioli in 2021-22.
Napoli
No club’s titles mean more to its city. Diego Maradona led Napoli to their first two Scudetti, in 1987 and 1990, and became something close to a saint in Naples. The club waited 33 years for the third, finally won by Luciano Spalletti’s side in 2023 with Victor Osimhen and Khvicha Kvaratskhelia. Antonio Conte then delivered a fourth in 2024-25.
The Rome clubs and the rest
Roma and Lazio share the Stadio Olimpico and one of the most intense rivalries in football. Roma’s three titles came in 1942, 1983 and 2001, the last with Francesco Totti at his peak. Lazio won in 1974 and 2000. Elsewhere, Atalanta have become a genuine force since the late 2010s and won the Europa League in 2024, while one-off champions like Cagliari (1970), Verona (1985) and Sampdoria (1991) are fondly remembered.
Recent Serie A champions
After nearly a decade of Juventus control, the Scudetto has moved around much more in the 2020s.
| Season | Champions | Coach |
|---|---|---|
| 2019-20 | Juventus | Maurizio Sarri |
| 2020-21 | Inter | Antonio Conte |
| 2021-22 | AC Milan | Stefano Pioli |
| 2022-23 | Napoli | Luciano Spalletti |
| 2023-24 | Inter | Simone Inzaghi |
| 2024-25 | Napoli | Antonio Conte |
| 2025-26 | Inter | Cristian Chivu |
Conte’s 2021 Inter title ended Juventus’s nine-year run, and Conte has now won the league with three different clubs: Juventus, Inter and Napoli.
How Italian football plays: tactics and reputation
Catenaccio and the defensive myth
Serie A has long had a reputation for defensive, cautious football. It comes from catenaccio, meaning “door bolt”, a system with a sweeper (the libero) behind the defensive line. Herrera’s Inter made it famous in the 1960s, though they were deadlier on the counter than the stereotype suggests.
The reputation stuck for decades, but it’s out of date. Modern Serie A is tactically varied. Gian Piero Gasperini’s Atalanta played aggressive man-to-man pressing all over the pitch. Spalletti’s Napoli were one of the most attractive sides in Europe. Serie A teams still tend to be well organised, but a dull 0-0 is no more common in Italy than anywhere else.
Coaching culture
Italy takes coaching very seriously. The national coaching school at Coverciano, near Florence, is famous for its long, demanding courses, and Italian managers have won the Champions League many times, with Carlo Ancelotti the most decorated of all. Tactical detail is part of the culture. Fans and pundits argue about formations the way others argue about players.
The golden era
From the late 1980s to the late 1990s, Serie A was the best league in the world, and it wasn’t close. Maradona, Van Basten, Lothar Matthäus, Roberto Baggio, Zinedine Zidane, Gabriel Batistuta and Ronaldo all played there. Italian clubs reached the European Cup or Champions League final every season from 1992 to 1998. Seven clubs, the so-called “seven sisters” (Juventus, Milan, Inter, Roma, Lazio, Fiorentina and Parma), could all realistically chase the title.
The decline that followed came from money, ageing stadiums and scandal, while the Premier League’s TV deals surged ahead. Italian clubs have since recovered ground, with Inter’s two recent finals the clearest sign.
Calciopoli and other scandals
You can’t explain Serie A without Calciopoli. In 2006, investigators uncovered phone calls showing club executives, most prominently at Juventus, trying to influence the selection of referees. The fallout was enormous.
- Juventus were stripped of their 2004-05 title, had the 2005-06 title taken away and were relegated to Serie B for the only time in their history.
- The 2005-06 Scudetto was awarded to Inter, who had finished third on the pitch.
- Milan, Fiorentina, Lazio and Reggina received points deductions.
Remarkably, Italy won the 2006 World Cup that same summer, with several Juventus players in the team. Juventus came straight back up and rebuilt. Those two revoked titles are why you’ll still hear Juventus fans claim 38 Scudetti rather than the official 36.
Great Serie A derbies
Italian football is intensely local, and derbies are the heartbeat of every season.
- Derby della Madonnina: Milan against Inter, named after the golden statue of the Virgin Mary on Milan Cathedral. Both clubs share San Siro, so it’s always a home game for someone.
- Derby della Capitale: Roma against Lazio in Rome. Fiercely tribal and often tense.
- Derby d’Italia: Inter against Juventus, the “Derby of Italy”, between the two most successful clubs. Not a city derby, but arguably the biggest rivalry in the country.
- Derby della Mole: Juventus against Torino in Turin.
- Derby della Lanterna: Genoa against Sampdoria, named after Genoa’s lighthouse.
Serie A records and legends
A few numbers every Serie A fan should know:
- All-time top scorer: Silvio Piola, with 274 goals from 1929 to 1954. Francesco Totti is second with 250, all for Roma.
- Most appearances: Gianluigi Buffon, with 657, ahead of Paolo Maldini.
- Most goals in a season: 36, by Gonzalo Higuaín for Napoli in 2015-16, equalled by Ciro Immobile for Lazio in 2019-20.
- Most consecutive titles: nine, by Juventus from 2011-12 to 2019-20.
The league’s top scorer each season is called the capocannoniere. Players are often remembered as much for winning it as for winning the league.
The Grande Torino
One of the saddest stories in football belongs here. Torino won five consecutive titles in the 1940s with a side many consider the greatest Italian team ever. In May 1949 the plane carrying the squad home from a friendly in Lisbon crashed into the hill of Superga outside Turin, killing everyone on board. Torino were awarded that season’s title, and the club has never fully recovered its place among the elite.
Other Italian competitions
Coppa Italia
Italy’s main domestic cup is the Coppa Italia. Seeded clubs enter later in the competition, and early rounds are often played at the higher-ranked side’s ground. The final is usually played at the Stadio Olimpico in Rome. Juventus have won it more than anyone.
Supercoppa Italiana
The Supercoppa traditionally pitted the league champions against the cup winners. It now uses a four-team format with semi-finals and a final, and has often been played in Saudi Arabia in recent seasons.
Common misunderstandings about Serie A
“It’s all defensive football”
As covered above, that’s decades out of date. Goals-per-game figures in recent Serie A seasons are broadly comparable with Europe’s other big leagues.
“Juventus always win”
They did between 2012 and 2020. Since then, as of October 2026, Inter have won three titles, Napoli two and Milan one, while Juventus haven’t won the league.
“Serie A and Serie B are separate worlds”
Big clubs do go down. Juventus spent a season in Serie B after Calciopoli, and Milan were relegated for match-fixing in 1980 and on the pitch in 1982. Napoli dropped as far as the third tier after bankruptcy in 2004 before climbing back.
“Inter and AC Milan are the same club”
They share a city and a stadium, but they’re separate clubs with very different identities and histories. Never say this in Milan.
Frequently asked questions
How many teams are in Serie A?
Serie A has 20 teams. Each plays the other 19 twice, for a total of 38 matches per club and 380 in the season.
Who has won the most Serie A titles?
Juventus, with 36 official Scudetti. Inter have 21 and AC Milan 19, as of October 2026.
Who won Serie A in 2025-26?
Inter won the 2025-26 Serie A title, their 21st. Napoli were champions in 2024-25 under Antonio Conte.
What does Scudetto mean?
Scudetto means “little shield” in Italian. It’s the tricolour badge that the reigning champions wear on their shirts, and it has become the everyday word for the league title.
How many teams get relegated from Serie A?
Three. The bottom three clubs drop to Serie B and are replaced by the top two in Serie B plus the winner of the Serie B play-offs.
How many Serie A teams qualify for the Champions League?
Normally four. Italy can earn a fifth place through UEFA’s European Performance Spots when its clubs do well in Europe the season before.
Follow every round of Italian football on our Serie A hub, and relive one of the great nights for an Italian club in Europe with the 2023 Champions League final between Man City and Inter.
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