Serie
A , officially known as the Lega Calcio Serie A TIM for sponsorship
reasons, is a professional league competition for football
clubs
located at the top echelon of the Football League System of
Italy.
It
is widely regarded as one of the elite leagues
of the footballing world.
Historically,
Serie A has produced the highest number of European Cup finalists.
In
total Italian clubs have reached the final of the competition on a
record of twenty-five different occasions, winning the title eleven
times.
In
its current format, the Championship
was revised from having regional and interregional rounds, to just one
solid league for the 1929–30 season onwards; the Serie A system carries
on today.
The
championship titles won before 1929 are officially
recognised by FIGC as a championship in the same way the ones since
then are.
The
league hosts some of the world's most famous
clubs: Juventus, Milan, Inter and Roma.
Juventus,
Milan and Inter were all founding members of the G-14 a group
representing the largest and most prestigious European football
clubs.
Serie
A was the only league to produce three founding members.
More
players have won the coveted Ballon d'Or
award while playing at a Serie A club than any other league in the
world.
AC
Milan is the club with more official
international titles in the world.
Juventus,
third in Europe and sixth in the world in the same ranking, is also,
the only club in the planet to have won all official club competitions.
League History
For
most of Serie A's history there have been 16
or 18 clubs
competing at the top level; however since 2004–05 there have been 20
clubs altogether. Below is a complete record of how many teams have
played in each season throughout the league's history;
During
the course of an Italian Football season, from August to May, each club
plays each of the other teams twice; once at home and once away,
totalling 38 games for each team by the end of the season. In Italian
football, a true round-robin format is used. In the first half of the
season, called andata in Italy, each team plays exactly one time
against each league opponent, a total of 19 games. In the second half
of the season, called ritorno, the teams play in exactly the same order
that they did in the first half of the season, the only difference
being that home and away situations are switched.
Since
1994 teams are awarded three points for a
win, one point for a draw, and no points for a loss.
European Qualification
Since
Italy is currently rated as one of the top three European countries in
terms of club soccer ratings, the top four teams in the Serie A qualify
for the UEFA Champions League. The top two teams qualify directly to
the group phase, while the third and fourth placed teams enter the
competition at the third qualifying round and must win a two-legged
knockout tie in order to enter the group phase. Teams finishing 5th and
6th qualify for the UEFA Cup Tournament. A third UEFA Cup spot is
reserved for the winner of the Coppa Italia. If the Coppa Italia
champion has already qualified for one of the two European tournaments
by placing in the top six of Serie A, the third UEFA Cup spot goes to
the losing finalist. If both Coppa Italia finalists finish among the
top six teams in Serie A, the 7th classified team in Serie A is awarded
the UEFA Cup spot. The three lowest placed teams are relegated to Serie
B.
Before
the 2005–06 season if two or more teams
were tied in
points for first place, for only one spot in a European tournament, or
in the relegation zone, teams would play tie-breaking games after the
season was over to determine which team would be champion, or be
awarded a European tournament spot, or be saved or relegated. Since
2005-06, if two or more teams end the season with the same number of
points, the ordering is determined by their head-to-head records. In
case two or more teams have same total points and same head-to-head
records, goal difference becomes the secondary deciding factor.
The
Golden
Star
In
1958, based on an idea of Umberto Agnelli, the honor of Golden Star for
Sports Excellence ("Stella d’Oro al Merito Sportivo" in Italian) was
introduced to recognize sides that have won multiple championships or
other honours by the display of gold stars on their team crests and
jerseys. In Italy, the practice is to award one star for ten titles.
The first team to adopt a star was Juventus in Italy and Europe[8], who
added a star above their crest in 1958 to represent their tenth Serie A
title. In 1982, they received their second golden star for having won
their 20th league title.
The
current (as of July 2007)
officially-sanctioned Lega Calcio Serie A stars are:
*
♦♦ Juventus FC (27; received in 1958 and 1982).
* ♦ AC Milan (17,
received in 1979). * ♦ FC Internazionale Milano (15, received in 1966).
History
Serie
A, as it is structured today, began in 1929. From 1898 to 1922 Italian
Football was organised into regional groups. Because of ever growing
teams attending regional championships, FIGC split the CCI (Italian
Football Confederation) in 1921. When CCI teams rejoined the FIGC
created two interregional divisions renaming Categories into Divisions
and splitting FIGC sections into two North-South leagues. In 1926 due
to internal crises FIGC changed internal settings adding southern teams
to the national divisions which lead to 1929-30 final settlement. No
title was awarded in 1927 after Torino were stripped of the
championship by the Italian Football Federation (FIGC). Torino were
declared champions in the 1948-49 season following a plane crash near
the end of the season in which the entire team was killed.
The
Serie A Championship in Italian Football is often referred to as the
scudetto (small shield) because the winning team will bear a small coat
of arms with the Italian tricolour on their strip in the following
season (from the season 1924-25). The most successful club is Juventus
F.C. with 27 championships, followed by A.C. Milan (17), Internazionale
Milano (15) and Genoa C&FC (9). From 2004-05 onwards an actual
trophy was awarded to club on the field after the last turn of the
championship. The trophy, called Coppa Campioni d'Italia, is official
from the season 1960-61, but from 1961 to 2004 it was consigned to the
winning clubs in the offices of Lega calcio in Milan.
