The football-crazy nation of Italy is getting ready for Serie A to return within three weeks after top-flight clubs voted to resume the season on 13th June.
There is no dissent among the clubs, with 16 votings for the 13th and four asking for the season to recommence a week later. The plan is to complete the campaign by August 20th with the 2020/21 campaign beginning on 1st September.
The players have been back in training since early May though making a restart was never going to be easy. And with 12 rounds of fixtures still to play this is a fairly tight timescale. The Italian Football Federation will meet with Lega Serie A to work out a revised timetable, to incorporate the Coppa Italia, also to be completed by the end of August.
The head of the Italian Olympic committee has said that the league is 99 percent sure of starting on time: “To talk about the chances of finishing it, you would need a crystal ball,” said Giovanni Malago. “It’s a real risk, but Serie A’s primary and only objective is to restart.”
The German Bundesliga has made a successful comeback, with no report of any issue as yet, and Spain’s Prime Minister, Pedro Sanchez, has said La Liga can kick off again on June 8th, two weeks from today. Javier Tebas, the La Liga president has suggested playing games every day of the week to get the season finished in good time.
It’s all encouraging stuff; but the Italian football chiefs are working on a contingency should they run into problems. If the Serie A season restarts only to be postponed or halted again, the league will look for a new format to determine final standings, including play-off rounds to find the league champions, European qualifiers and relegation clubs.
Let’s pick up where we left off…
We all hope it won’t come to that, and that when football starts up again, it won’t stop until the end of next season! There are plenty of matters to be settled from top to bottom including a thrilling title race. When we do get back to football Lazio will be ready to challenge Juventus for the Scudetto, with top scorer Ciro Immobile on target for another Capocannoniere.
Juventus is a point ahead but with an inferior goal difference, though the Serie A 2020 betting odds back I Bianconeri, mainly because they have recent experience of title run-ins and are looking for a record ninth successive league triumph.
European places
Antonio Conte’s Inter Milan had a brilliant first half of the season but they have fallen away since Christmas and look nailed on to stay in third place. The final Champions League spot is a battle between Atalanta, who currently sit in fourth, three points ahead of Roma.
Atalanta have been more consistent though, while Roma followed a run of three consecutive losses with back-to-back wins. Napoli is in sixth, with Milan, Verona, Parma and Bologna all in the hunt for the final Europa League place. Milan’s hopes of winning that race have taken a blow this week with the news that veteran striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic has injured his Achilles, and that is likely to keep him out for the remainder of the campaign.
The big Swede was always going to be in the Serie A 2020 news from the moment he signed for the Rossoneri in the winter window. But this is not an announcement fans wanted to hear after the 38-year-old scored three goals in his first eight appearances.
Relegation
While Brescia and SPAL are in deep, deep trouble at the bottom, nine and seven points from safety, the third relegation spot looks like a six-way battle. Lecce is in the uncomfortable seat at the moment, but level with 17th placed Genoa on 25 points. Sampdoria has 26, Torino 27, Udinese 28 and even Fiorentina, in 12th on 30 points, is far from safe.
Hopefully we’ll be back with SBOBET odds for Serie A within a couple of weeks. The leagues are coming back slowly but surely. The Bundesliga is already up and running, La Liga is going to be next, with Serie A and the Premier League to follow.
Life won’t be the same for a while yet, and one change might be that we see domestic football running through June, July and August, before the next season starts in September.
We’ve missed live football over the past two months but it seems we might just be about to get an avalanche!
●●●
CHECK OUT OUR BLOG FOR MORE FOOTBALL STORIES & ODDS
Stay updated with everything sports and betting.
Follow us on social Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.
