The Serie A season in Italy is underway, with the kickoff throughout the league happening last weekend. The soccer season will run into the first weekend of June, pushed back this season because of the winter FIFA World Cup in Qatar. Serie A will take a six-week break for the World Cup and Christmas with no action from November 13 until the first week of January.
A league like Serie A gives soccer bettors plenty of options with season-long futures bets. Among the bets still available and changing throughout the season are the team to win the league, the three teams to get relegated to Serie B, and the leading scorer known as the Golden Boot winner.
Internazionale Favorites
A year after being beaten to the title by their rival neighbors AC Milan, Internazionale are the favorites to claim the scudetto in 2022-23. Inter is +155 to claim their second Serie A championship in three years. Inter brought back Romelu Lukaku on loan from Chelsea to team with goal-scoring threat Lautaro Martinez and also added midfielder Henrikh Mkhitaryan from Roma.
Juventus has the second-best odds to win the title at +215, with defending champions AC Milan down at +400. Juventus brought back Paul Pogba while adding Angel Di Maria from PSG and Filip Kostic from Frankfurt. They did lose Paulo Dybala to Roma, Alvaro Morata to Atletico Madrid and legend Giorgio Chiellini to LAFC.
The defending champions from AC Milan added Charles De Ketelaere from Club Brugge, Divock Origi from Liverpool, and Alessandro Florenzi from PSG via Roma. Zlatan Ibrahimovic is injured, and Milan will need Rafael Leao and Olivier Giroud to duplicate their 14-goal seasons from last year to stay in contention.
Salernitana Heading Down
The three new teams in Serie A this season are Lecce, Cremonese, and Monza Brianza. Last year only one of the new three teams were immediately relegated, with Venezia unable to stay up. Empoli and Sampdoria found safety with 14th and 15th place finishes.
According to the sportsbooks, Cremonese has the least chance of staying up as they are -190 to get relegated with Lecce at -125. Salernitana has the next best odds of +125 to go down after struggling last year. Salernitana had a Serie A worst -45 goal differential, and they stayed up by just one point.
Cremonese and Lecce may struggle to adapt to Serie A, but Salernitana is the best bet to go down. Only a late rally, under a third manager, saved them last season, and they did little to fix a defense that allowed 78 goals in 38 league games last year.
Lukaku Golden Boot Favorite
Back in the Serie A, after a disastrous year in the Premier League with Chelsea, Romelu Lukaku is the Golden Boot favorite for 2022-23. The Belgian scored 24 goals for Inter in 2020-21 and 23 goals in 2019-20, losing out to Cristiano Ronaldo and Ciro Immobile as Golden Boot winners.
Immobile won the award last year, netting 27 goals for Lazio, nine less than he had when claiming the award in 2020. Immobile is +400 to win this year which would be his fifth career Capocannoniere.
Dustin Vlahovic, who scored 24 goals last year for both Fiorentina and Juventus, is +275 to win. Lukaku’s teammate Lauturo Martinez is +800 while Roma’s Tammy Abraham is +1200. Martinez finished third last year with 21 goals, while Abraham led Roma with 17.