Bundesliga x Serie A Predictions

Combined with my article on teams I'll be watching, I thought it would be cool to predict where teams will finish in the leagues in the title.

Now, I need to add my personal take here, because some will say it's silly to predict a league that has one dominant team that wins every year. If you look at the "most exciting league" of top tier football, according to the accepted narrative, aka the Premier League, only a few teams have a semblance of a chance each season at winning the title. The phrase "top six" isn't even accurate, as people make it out to be six teams every year challenging. It's more like one or two, occasionally three. Also, people who don't watch either league tend to rate the Bundesliga over Serie A by a distance, and I have my own take on it. Italian football struggles because of the "defensive football" narrative, which isn't even true, and the number of bad teams at the bottom. To have three promoted teams each season, plus the likes of Cagliari, Genoa, Sampdoria, and Udinese all playing ridiculously poor football, floundering in the bottom half, makes the league look bad. The Bundesliga, in contrast, is about pressing and high defensive lines, which people find exciting, despite the quality being low outside the top 3 teams, and there are two fewer bottom feeders.

Out of curiosity, I looked at the 538 website to see who they favored for the three leagues I've mentioned. Serie A is by far the most open, according to that, though I completely disagree that City are the PL favorites (57% to Liverpool's 23%), as I stated in my preview. Anyways, Bayern are at 81% in Germany, with Inter at 31%, Juve at 22%, Atalanta and Milan at 12%, and Napoli at 11% in Italy. It's pretty crazy how open Serie A appears.

Champions:

It'll take some doing for Dortmund or Leipzig to unseat Bayern. It won't happen. They won the treble and signed Sane. Moving on, Serie A has been given a bad name with the recent Juventus domination. Despite the consecutive titles, there has often been a challenger, be it Inter, Napoli, or Roma. The one point margin last season isn't indicative of how far off Inter were. I'd say they were even with Atalanta and Lazio, with Juve clearly ahead. I'm well aware that they might miss top four entirely and I'll look like an idiot, but I think Inter will implode with Conte doing his mad scientist routine, and it'll take Pirlo a while to learn the ropes (plus the squad will be all-in for the CL), allowing Atalanta to win their first title. I went with logic, not my heart, in the PL predictions, so screw it, Gasperini will finally learn to coach a defense, cutting down the goals conceded by 20 or so, thanks in part to Romero, and they'll win the Scudetto by a small margin. Signing Miranchuk and keeping Pasalic (was on loan from Chelsea) permanently will help ease the attacking burden on Papu and Ilicic. Neither Muriel nor Zapata has left, so they'll be competing and rotating for the #9 role. The thing with Inter is Conte is crazy, and the style of football is brutal (not in a good way). Conte needs to harness Eriksen's ability and find a way to keep Sensi fit, or else there's no creativity in the side. The core of Juventus is old, and they haven't won a European Cup this century, so with the condensed season, they'll once again sacrifice league form to try and win it. I love Cristiano, but at some point he'll slow down, and his focus will be on the upcoming Euros and bring big ears back to the Old Lady.

Rest of top 4:

Starting with Serie A this time, Inter and Juventus will follow the Bergamo side, leaving one spot for all of Milan, Roma, Lazio and Napoli to fight for. I'll just go with Milan. Positivity is contagious, and I think bringing in Brahim Diaz and Sandro Tonali can only improve the side. Lazio will be focused on Champions League and the league form will continue to dip, Zaniolo being out will negate positives at Roma (like Kumbulla), and the negative football Gattuso plays will cost Napoli at the end. If, and this is a huge if, Osimhen hits the ground running, they'll get top 4. I just don't see it happening, yet. This, in my book, is the most promising top four race in Europe, simply because all 7 tams have a legit shot at Champions League football.

I don't see a situation where Dortmund drop off; they have too much talent and depth. Same with Leipzig. Aside from replacing Werner, that squad is certain for top four. That once again leaves one spot to debate over. My pick is boring, as Gladbach will retain their spot. I don't trust Schick, and losing Havertz and Volland will hurt Leverkusen. Marco Rose is a better coach than Peter Bosz, as well. I want to pick Frankfurt or Hertha, but there's so much ground to make up on the two that finished 4th and 5th last season. Wolfsburg and Hoffenheim are in Europa this season, and I don't like either coach, so I can't pick either of them.

Europa League:

Quick picks, as I already covered the contending teams. I'm listing three because it's unlikely a random team wins the league cup, so 7th gets the Euro spot.

Germany- Leverkusen, Hoffenheim, Frankfurt

Italy- Lazio, Napoli, Roma

Relegation:

The promoted teams are mysteries. I mean, I've seen Crotone when guys like Budimir and Mandragora were there, and I obviously watched Stuttgart over the years. Spezia have literally never been in the top flight, and I want to say Benevento have only been up for one season, when then didn't get a point until November. Bielefeld won the second division, but from what I've heard they weren't anything spectacular. As I said in the first part, there are tons of horrible teams that play bad football in both leagues. I just have to pick three (two automatic, one for the playoff in Germany).

Serie A- Spezia, Genoa, Crotone. Benevento should be the best bet to stay up, out of the three, as they were by far the best team in Serie B last season. They accumulated 18 more points than 2nd place, scoring 40 goals more than they conceded (+23 for Crotone and +14 for Spezia). I mentioned the clubs just holding on earlier, and Genoa is the worst of them. A drop was potentially on the table until the final day, when they found a "convenient" draw that assured safety. Cagliari and Parma could easily be in the mix, as the Sardinia outfit fell off drastically in the second half of last season, and Parma fired their coach and lost their best player (Kulusevski).

Bundesliga- Arminia and Union, with Stuttgart in the playoff. Honestly, I'm not being too creative here. Union play mind-numbing football and lost their main striker to Cologne. I was always going to pick one promoted team to go back down. Augsburg and Schalke are really bad, like I wouldn't watch them unless you paid me. That winless streak should've cost Wagner his job, and I think he's out of his depth after his fluke success at Huddersfield. Only reason I picked Stuttgart to "achieve" 16th is they're a "big club" with a few decent players.