Serie A 2023-24 Season Predictions : Opta Predictions

Serie A season predictions: quick hits

Championship favorites:
FC Internazionale Milano (football club)Top four:Juventus, Milan, Napoli
Demotion Candidates:Verona, Cagliari, Salernitana

Before the 2023-24 season started in August, we asked the Opta supercomputer to predict how the Serie A season would go. It came back and told us that Inter Milan would take the lead, and so far, that hasn't been wrong.

After playing 12 games, we thought it was time to go back and review how things were going, so asked the supercomputer to work its magic again and give us some updated numbers.

Here we introduce you to the new percentage of possibilities for teams competing for the title, getting into Europe and fighting relegation.

Who will win the Serie A title in the 2023-24 season?

Almost a third of the season is already underway, but according to the Opta supercomputer, the likelihood of Inter Milan or Juventus winning the Serie A title in the 2023-24 season has reached 96.31 TP3T.

Not without reason. Juve are two points behind Inter Milan and Milan are six points behind third-placed Massimiliano Allegri's side.

Inter Milan have won 10 of their 12 games so far, with their only dropped points coming in a home loss to Sassuolo and an away draw at Bologna. They beat neighboring Milan 5-1 in September, a statement win, and Simone Inzaghi's men have moved on since then.

Juventus appeared to be in poor form before the start of the season considering last season's points deduction and lack of European soccer, but that seems to have worked in their favor. The Zebras also suffered their only league loss against Sassuolo and draws with Bologna and Atalanta, but five straight wins have allowed them to pull away from top-ranked Inter Milan.

Juventus and Inter Milan will face off at the Allianz Arena in the Italian derby on Sunday in what already feels like a title-deciding battle. However, the Blue and Blacks are the favorites to lift the Serie A title at the end of the season. the Opta supercomputer made them favorites ahead of the 2023-24 season (43.81 TP3T) and has nearly doubled their chances to 84.81 TP3T, while Juventus' probability has risen from 4.21 TP3T at the start of the season to 11.61 TP3T.

Elsewhere, we're already talking about outsiders. Milan would normally be happy with third place, but the main reason for trailing the lead by eight points is that they only had 2.2% chances to do so, while Napoli managed to fight back and retain their title in only 1.2% out of 10,000 simulations.

That's a significant drop from the 43% simulation at the start of the season, where they did repeat the trick and win the title. After the sacking of Rudi Garcia last week, Kvaratskhelya and his teammates are hoping for a boost from the return of former boss Walter Mazzarri, but it's already a big ask to pull 10 points back to the top of the table.

As for the rest of the teams, only four others have gotten any chance at the supercomputer. Atlanta's 0.06% is followed by Lazio (0.05%), Bologna (0.02%) and Roma (0.01%).

Which teams will qualify for Europe?

Unsurprisingly, Inter Milan (99.91 TP3T) and Juventus (94.81 TP3T) were considered virtually certain to finish in the top four after the opening round.

Milan and Napoli may still have a ways to go in the title race, but at least both can try to cement their place in the Champions League spots. Despite not winning any of their last four Serie A matches (D2 L2), the Red and Blacks still have a 76.3% chance of finishing in the top four, while Mazzarri must figure out how to win at the Stadio Diego Armando Maradona if he wants to maintain or even improve on his side's 67.3% chance of qualifying for next season's Champions League. Napoli have not won any of their last three league home games (D1 L2). Things won't get off to an easy start for him either, with his first three games coming against Atalanta, Inter Milan and Juventus.

Speaking of Atlanta, they qualified for the Champions League in just over a quarter of their 10,000 season simulations (25.21 TP3T) and have a 65.01 TP3T total chance of ending the season with a Champions League, Euroleague, or Conference Europe berth.

Lazio haven't had the best of starts to the season, losing 5 of their 12 games so far (W5 D2) and currently sitting in 10th place, but they're still regarded as having a 13.8% chance of finishing in the top four and a 48.4% chance of qualifying for Europe. Fiorentina, who are four places and three points above them, may feel the sting, with the Opta supercomputer not rating them as highly as Lazio, who have a likelihood of a top-four finish of 12.4%, and 43.8% of a European place.

Mourinho and Roma didn't get off to the best of starts this season, winning just one of their first six Serie A games (D2 L3), but they've recovered in recent weeks, winning four of their last six matches, with their only dropped points coming in away defeats to Inter Milan and Lazio. However, they can only finish in the top four in the 5.0% simulation and are only a quarter of the way through (25%) in the European rankings.

Elsewhere, eighth-placed Bologna have a 22.8% chance of qualifying for Europe, while Torino (4.4%) and Monza (4.2%) receive honorable mentions.

Who will be relegated from Serie A in the 2023-24 season?

Things aren't looking too good for Salernitana. The opening draw against Roma was a promising start, but 12 games on, they are still looking for their first win (D5 L7). Filippo Inzaghi has replaced Paulo Sousa as head coach but so far little has changed and the Opta supercomputer doesn't believe anything will happen as it gives Salernitana a 88.1% chance of falling.

Cagliari are back in Serie A this season, but it may not last long. They are in the relegation zone with just two wins in 12 games (D3 L7) and have been relegated back to Serie B in a 62.5% simulation.

Unsurprisingly, the team sandwiched between Salernitana and Cagliari - Verona - are the other favorites to be relegated, having dropped 55.1%. Like the former, they started the season well enough with consecutive victories over Empoli and Roma, but haven't won in Serie A since, drawing two and losing eight, including their last six.

Empoli have a 28.8% chance of being relegated, while newly-promoted Genoa will probably be happy that they only have a 16.8% chance of going straight back to Serie B.

Udinese (13.31 TP3T) and Frosinone (12.81 TP3T) are considered the second most likely, which may all be in doubt considering how well the latter has performed in the top flight since promotion and how poorly the former has generally performed, which we'll get to shortly.

Lecce (11.41 TP3T) and Sassuolo (10.31 TP3T) make up the bulk of the rest of the teams, which seems rather surprising for the latter as they have both beaten Inter and Juventus this season. The problem is that the only other team they've beaten is Verona, and they've lost 6 and drawn 3.

Outside of those teams, no other team is thought to have more than an 1% chance of relegation, and despite Mourinho's possible interest, his Roma side are still thought to have a 0.03% chance of relegation. Of course not ......

Serie A Expected Points

Our expected scoring model simulates the number of goals each team will score in each game based on the expected goals per shot (xG) value. It then uses the simulated number of goals to determine the outcome of the game (win/draw/lose) by running the model through 10,000 times for each game. The expected number of points for each team in each match can then be calculated based on the simulated percentage of wins/draws/losses for each team. This is certainly not an exact science, as xG data does not include many factors such as the state of the game and dangerous periods of possession that do not lead to shots on goal.

Looking at the expected points in Serie A, perhaps there should be a third team in the title race at this point, and Rudi Garcia could be considered unlucky as his now ex-team clearly deserves 25 points instead of 21, while Inter Milan (27 points) and Juventus (25 points) have outperformed their expected points.

Milan actually overachieved as well, with only 19 expected points, which should be below Napoli as well as Atalanta and Roma (both with 21 points).

Fiorentina are another team with more points than expected (15), with a total expected goal difference of 12.67 and 20 goals scored, while some of the teams near the bottom of the table may consider themselves unlucky. The bottom six teams are all below their expected points, with Salernitana three points behind their expected eight, Verona one point off, and Cagliari and Empoli both three points off.

However, Udinese are seven points below their expected points, suggesting that they are either very unlucky and a turnaround in form is just around the corner, or that they just don't have the requisite goalscorers, having scored just eight times out of an expected 15.64.

Opta Simulation Serie A 2023-24 Standings

After simulating the remainder of the 2023-24 season 10,000 times, we were able to rank the teams by averaging each club's point total across these simulations. Below are the results obtained by the Opta supercomputer from these simulations:

First:

FC Internazionale Milano (football club)

2: Juventus, Italian football team
3: Milan (Italy)
4: Napoli, capital of Campania region of Italy
5: Atlanta
6: Latium
7: Florence
8: Rome, capital of Italy
9: Bologna
10: Monza
11: Turin (Italy)
12: Sassuolo
13: Lecce (city in Italy)
14th:Frosinone
15th:Udinese
16th:Genoa
17th:Empoli
18th:Hellas Verona
19th:Cagliari, Sardinia
20th:Salernitana, Spain

How does the Opta supercomputer model work?

• Opta's league prediction model estimates the likelihood of a team finishing in each position in the competition. As a result, we can see how successful a team's season is likely to be, whether it's their chances of relegation or winning the title.
• The model estimates the probability of each game's outcome (win, draw or loss) by using betting market odds and the Opta Power Rankings. The odds and rankings are based on historical and recent team performances.
• The model takes into account the strength of opponents by using these match result probabilities and simulates the remaining fixtures in the competition thousands of times. By analyzing the results of each simulation, the model can see how often teams finish games in each league standings to create the final prediction.