Hold Up - Since When Was Serie A the Most Entertaining League in Europe?!

Serie A is Cooking at the Moment, and Not Just for Clean Sheets…

Italian football stereotypes are possibly some of the most powerful, well-known assumptions in the game. “Dirty cheats just roll around on the floor”, or “they love a clean sheet”, or even "they celebrated that tackle like a goal”.

Italian players, and more broadly Italian sides, love to defend – they see it as a lost art form, something against the grain that must be perfected, and something very few European opponents will take the time to perfect, such is their willingness to create a devastating attack.

Now, we’re not saying that the Italian top flight is deviating from its principles, but the 2026/27 season has been a refreshing breath of fresh air so far this campaign. Used to cagey 1-0 games and the not-so-occasional goalless stalemate, Calcio critics have instead been treated to end-to-end, goal-heavy, almost Premier League-esque games.

The stats show that no Serie A season has started like this in years, and with a remarkable ZERO goalless draws in the opening 40 games of the season, the football world has started talking in hushed tones of a highly sought-after fact that has seldom been witnessed in football history.

Goal Mouth Action

Serie A is no stranger to the goalless draw. Across the entirety of last season, the league played out 36 bore draws, an average of just under one per gameweek, and seasons further back in time birthed the assumptions and stereotypes that we discussed in the intro.

This season feels different, not just from its vibe, but from the tangible on-pitch evidence being witnessed by hundreds of thousands every weekend – Italian sides have suddenly started to attack with fervour, and so far, we are yet to see a goalless game.

The odds of that fact being true after four gameweeks are unlikely, and the chances of it being maintained throughout the entire season are astronomical: the actual likelihood that the Serie A goes an entire 380-game season without a single 0-0 sits at a minute 1 in 690 BILLION. If you work better in percentages, that works out at a tiny 0.00000000145%!

🚨📈📊 | Tons of goals and no 0-0 in any of the first 4 matchday games in Serie A.

Serie A right now has 3.025 goals per game average. In comparision EPL has 2.975, Laliga has 3.04. Previous seasons, Serie A used to lack behind in terms of total goals generally. pic.twitter.com/358TeSePnM

— Huge Fanatics ❁ (@HugeFanatics) September 16, 2026

Across the first four gameweeks of the season, we have seen the ball find the back of the net 121 times (just over three goals per game), more than in the same period in any of the previous four seasons – the beginning of last season boasted just 91 goals in 40 matches.

The last time the Serie A got off to such an electric start was back in 2021/22, and this was considered very much an anomaly. More to the point, even with the 131 goals spread across the first four weeks of the season, the league still produced two goalless draws in that time, while back in the present, we are still waiting to witness that quintessential Italian scoreline.

Attacks appear to have gotten better overnight, and it’s not just the forwards producing – three of the top five scorers in the league right now are midfielders, a fact that illustrates Italian clubs finally discovering that a more adventurous centre of the park can reap serious rewards around the opposing box.

Just to underline the point, the first game of last season, which was played out between Genoa and Lecce if anyone was wondering, ended 0-0 – surprising, and yet completely predictable at the same time.

It is a marked shift away from the norm and, as if further emphasising the point, the defensive stats concur…

Backline Abandonment

Across the first 40 games of the 2025/26 campaign, a total of 27 clean sheets were kept from a possible 80. 12 months later, just 16 goalkeepers have managed to shut out the opposition for the entire 90 minutes - Roma have kept almost 20% of them.

🚨🇮🇹 Roma start the Serie A season with a 100% win record! 🔴🟡

✅ 4-0 win vs Fiorentina
✅ 4-0 win vs Lecce
✅ 2-1 win vs Atalanta
✅ 2-0 win vs Torino

Gian Piero Gasperini's side have also kept 3/4 clean sheets. 🧱 pic.twitter.com/M9jY9eJTmo

— EuroFoot (@eurofootcom) September 14, 2026

This stat does two things. Firstly, it highlights that Italian attacking tactics have changed for the better, with young coaches such as Cesc Fabregas, Alberto Aquilani and Cristian Shivu in particular speaking up about the movement with their modernised approaches of fluid attacking football as opposed to employing the tried and tested ‘park the bus’.

It also illustrates that either Italian backlines have gotten worse, which, given their history, is not likely, or they simply weren’t ready to be posed with a different challenge this season and thus have not been able to cope with the alternative attacking strategies they have faced.

Instead of sitting back and defending a one-goal lead, sides are instead thinking, "Let's go and get another," and that brings with it a whole host of new physical and psychological tests for individuals all over the pitch, but particularly the centre backs, who are used to being the most prominent players on the pitch immediately after their team score a goal.

We can rule out the assumption that backlines have simply gotten worse – each of the four most important defensive stats has all gone up noticeably from last season, indicating that in fact, more defending is having to be done, and it is the sheer quantity of attacks that are actually leading to the sudden influx of goals.

Let’s take a look at the jump in numbers: the leading defenders from 2025/26 in each category boasted 11.6 DEFCON per 90, 4.4 tackles per 90, 2.2 interceptions per 90 and 1.2 blocks per 90.

This season, DEFCON sits at 16.4, tackles at 7.6, interceptions at 4.0 and blocks at 2.9. DEFCON has increased by 50%, tackles and interceptions have almost doubled, and blocks have almost multiplied by 200% for the leading performers in those categories – the defending is not the issue.

The Premier League should copy Serie A

With the new refereeing approach this season, that Foden red card would NEVER happen.

They would’ve told both players to get up 😂

Referees are allowing more physicality, VAR is intervening less and games are flowing.

Serie A is STILL… pic.twitter.com/TDx0lyzrPq

— Italian Football TV (@IFTVofficial) September 15, 2026

It seems that the Italian top flight is undergoing a revolutionary style change that risks seeing it become the most interesting league around.

No longer are coaches interested in 1-0 wins – they want to dominate and take all three points, wishing they had done more, and it seems certain that the once fashionable 0-0 draw is quickly falling out of the charts. It’s the change Italian football has needed for decades.

Despite having produced and hosted some of the biggest stars in the games' history, the Serie A has, of all of Europe's top five leagues, been objectively the most boring to watch, simply because of Italian beliefs and their love of defending.

Now, finally, it appears that Italian football is back on track to compete with the rest of Europe, and if it keeps up its current trajectory, it could break some hitherto unseen records this season. Get your popcorn ready – the more games that pass without a 0-0, the more exciting and wild the season will become.