The league that used to be determined by Marco van Basten or Michel Platini, Diego Maradona or John Charles had a new capo last season. Serie A’s MVP award went to the player who scored in the game when his side clinched the title: Scott McTominay. And if all that felt incongruous, it highlighted how what was the world’s most glamorous division has found a new identity, its unpredictability featuring some improbable plotlines. McTominay is proof. So are his team.
Napoli’s three-season arc has seen them double their tally of Scudetti to four, finishing first, 10th and then first again. Their surge last year under Antonio Conte is further evidence that Serie A can be the home of the ritorno, a place for comebacks from those deemed in decline. Which, some would say, the league as a whole is. It is 15 years since Italy has supplied a Champions League winner; indeed, three of its clubs were eliminated by Dutch and Belgian rivals last season. Others have supplanted it as the richest: the summer’s departures saw it stripped of its top scorer, Mateo Retegui, and its finest manager (at least as far as the Champions League is concerned), Simone Inzaghi, both by Saudi Arabia.
