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Juventus enter the 2019-20 season as Serie A favorites (again), but with Inter and Napoli making big splashes during the summer transfer window and a handful of other sides set up for improvement, it should be a highly entertaining year for Italian football.
If you live in the United States and are looking to watch Serie A action in 2019-20, nearly every match will be available live on ESPN+, the digital streaming service from ESPN that has exclusive coverage of Serie A in the US, dozens of other live sports, all the 30-for-30 documentaries and additional original content all for $4.99 per month.
You can sign up for ESPN+ right here, and you can then watch Serie A matches live on your computer via ESPN.com, or on your phone (Android and iPhone compatible), tablet, Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV, Chromecast, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, or other streaming device via the ESPN app.
Note that one match per week will be on ESPN or ESPN2. You won’t be able to watch those on ESPN+, but if you don’t have cable, you can watch via a live-TV streaming service such as Hulu With Live TV or Sling TV.
2019-20 Serie A Preview
Once again, it’s Juventus at the top.
La Vecchia Signora went 28-6-4 and topped second-place Napoli by 11 points to capture an eighth consecutive Scudetto last season. But when you reach that level of domination, anything short of perfection is going to result in a shakeup. And for Juventus, losing the quarterfinals of both the Coppa Italia and Champions League despite adding all-world forward Cristiano Ronaldo meant that changes were coming.
First, head coach Massimiliano Allegri, who led the team to five Serie A titles and four league-and-cup doubles, stepped down at the end of the season. He was replaced by Maurizio Sarri, the former Napoli manager who makes his return to Italy after one season with Chelsea.
Then Juventus made several changes on the pitch. In an effort to shore up an aging defense and replace several departures, they spent big on the back line, adding Matthijs de Ligt, Danilo and Merih Demiral. De Ligt was the most expensive, but it’s for good reason, as the 19-year-old was key in Ajax’s semifinal Champoions League run and has already proven himself to be one of the best center-backs in the world.
“He is the most talented youngster in Europe, and we are happy to have him with us,” Juventus captain Giorgio Chiellini said. “All those who arrived raised the level of the team. In training you see that every year we are getting stronger, and this is a pleasure for those who like I was here for many years but it is also a stimulus and responsibility.”
With a revamped defense and an attack led by Ronaldo, Mario Mandzukic, Paulo Dybala and Miralem Pjanic, Juventus are set up to once again lead the way in Italy.
But that doesn’t mean they won’t have challengers.
Napoli, who finished second in Serie A for the third time in four seasons last year, will be stronger at the back with the addition of center-back Konstantinos Manolas, and they’ll have more weapons up front after the arrival of 24-year-old Mexican star Hirving Lozano.
Inter still quite aren’t back to their dominance of the mid-to-late 2000’s, but they’re certainly moving in the right direction. Last season, not only did they finish fourth in Serie A for the second season in a row, but they also nearly advanced out of a Champions League group that featured Barcelona and Tottenham, coming up short only on a head-to-head away goal tiebreaker with the Spurs.
Now that they’ve added a new boss (Antonio Conte), a physical, over-powering forward (Romelu Lukaku) and a world-class defender (Diego Godin), they are set up to make a lot of noise this season.
Elsewhere, sides like Roma, AC Milan, Lazio and Atalanta may not quite have enough pieces to challenge Juventus over the course of an entire 38-match season, but they each have enough talent to beat La Vecchia Signora on any given night, and they all certainly have the pieces to compete for a top-four spot.
Put it all together, and we’re set up for a highly entertaining 2019-20 Serie A campaign.