Hello and welcome to our TOTS Serie A Predictions powered by Score More with Xbox!
It's been a really exciting season so far in Italy, a tight title race with the winner not decided by any means. Some really strong teams, a lot of goals, many high-scoring games and a lot of very good performances by different players.
I tried to divide TOTS across different teams, but overall there are the obvious main standouts: Inter, Lazio, Juventus, Atalanta. Those 4 teams are very different to each other but they've been on top.
I'm sure Atalanta is one of the more surprising teams for many of you but their last few seasons were good too, this year they've managed to showcase what they're capable of in Europe with some huge performances in the Champions League. They scored 7 goals in matches more than the rest of Europe combined which makes them really fun to watch.
Lazio is another surprise of the season, Simone Inzaghi has been doing a brilliant job as manager - seen by many to be the driving force behind their success. They were close to a UCL spot few years ago but that year unfortunately ended with De Vrij tragedy. This year is much better for them and they are a lot more consistent in the league, if the league resumes it's a very open race and will be very interesting to see who finishes on top.
Inter under Antonio Conte played well but lost to their main opponents and had few bumps on their road in the league. I think next year will be better, but this is a decent start for Conte’s reign in Inter.
Juventus as always lead the way - although this time not by much!This year they’re not playing as convincing as usually but it’s understandable, it's been all change - new manager, new tactics, new players. It’s hard to start playing Sarriball perfectly from the start but they are still top of the league, so that says a lot!
Few other decent teams played better than people expected, for example Cagliari with Nainggolan return but they dropped off after a bright start.
Overall, this season is really close. Teams in the middle of the table were replacing each other with every match day and I expect that to continue, giving us a really strong and balanced TOTS.
Let’s start.
Goalkeepers:
Main choice is Gianluigi Donnarumma from Milan. Arguably the most consistent player for Milan this year and saved them a lot of times. Donnarumma started making less mistakes and when we consider quality of Milan’s defense – that says a lot.
2nd choice is hard. I went with Szceszny from Juventus, because statistically he’s the best goalkeeper in the league but of course we should consider that he plays in Juventus. But again there weren’t many better choices in my opinion although Sirigu or Handanovic are possible. Maybe Handanovic would get it over Juventus GK, but if it was up to me – Wojciech would be my choice.
Defenders:
Fullbacks for the start: Main choice for Left Back position – Theo Hernandez from Milan. What a season, what a year for him. After a few rough years, he finally shown his best, really emerging as a leader for Milan alongside a few other key players. He scores goals, gives assists and overall has been playing fantastically well.
2nd left back choice is Alexander Kolarov. Might be a little bit controversial choice, but IMO he played well enough to be considered TOTS. He may be excluded because I also included Gosens from Atalanta as LWB\LM choice who would take his spot.
Robin Gosens is a fantastic and underrated player. Yes, he’s not the one who people hype from Atalanta, but he plays so well and very important for them, definitely one of the highlights of the season.
Right back is a hard one: there’re not many choice for RB position, so we’re going with Juan Cuadrado from Juventus. He transitioned to right back this season and that’s been one of Sarri's better decisions as Juventus coach. He plays very well and hasn't had too many bad games, he’s just consistent and does a solid job.
Center Backs: 4 main choices, but maybe I forgot someone too. Hit me up if I forgot someone.
Stefan De Vrij, Francesco Acerbi, Chris Smalling, Domenico Criscito.
Francesco Acerbi is the best defender in Serie A this season. He’s one of the most important pieces of the Lazio puzzle and he plays just so good every game. He was the first CB that came to my mind when I was making this prediction.
Stefan De Vrij is my 2nd choice. Inter has a decent defense and IMO De Vrij, and not Skriniar, is the main highlight of it. De Vrij was more consistent, more important and just overall better. Also scored few goals, so that counts too.
Chris Smalling or just Smalldini is your surprising pick of Predictions. Many people claimed that his career was over when he moved to Roma in the summer, but he has really shined in Italy. There are rumors that Roma want to buy him out from Manchester United and that would be very deserved and a great move for him considering the season he's had. Even though Roma and Chris had a few rough patches this season – overall he played well enough to get TOTS in my eyes.
Domenico Criscito – maybe not the most popular choice, but deserving one. He has returned to Italy and became very important to Genoa, scoring a lot of goals (even tho they’re mostly penalties) potentially helping Genoa to survive this season and that wouldn’t be possible without Criscito on the pitch.
Midfielders:
Few main and obvious choices there: Luis Alberto, Marcelo Brozovic and Sergej Milinkovic-Savic.
Luis Alberto having an insane season. One of the better players of the league, he plays mostly as CM in 3-5-1-1 formation and he’s another important piece of Lazio’s puzzle. His partner in crime, SMS is my another choice. 2 years ago everyone was hyping SMS too much and he wasn’t at his best last year. But he calmed down, settled in Lazio and played on awesome level once again.
Marcelo Brozovic is integral part of Inter success. One of their most important players this season, controlling the game from more deeper role. Marcelo is really underrated player and if he’ll get overlooked and won’t be included in TOTS – imo that wouldn’t be fair.
Fabian Ruiz is probably the best player of struggling Napoli. Many people saying that Mertens is their best player, but I disagree. Fabian is really good and rumors about him to every big European club basically confirm that. Napoli was a rise before the pause and one of the reasons – because Fabian Ruiz was playing well.
Radja Nainggolan is my last choice for midfielder spot. He started the season in Cagliari fantastically and had an awesome first part of the season. Then Cagliari and Radja started to struggle, but that still should be enough for TOTS because he’s one of the “fan favorite” players in FUT and everyone would love to get him.
Wingers:
There’re not many wingers that had a real standout season in Serie A, because most of the teams play 3 at the back formation and they basically don’t have wingers, but LM\RM. But there’re few wingers that stood out to me.
Paulo Dybala – I don’t know where to place him. Because one game he plays CAM, other game ST, 3rd game LW. I placed him LW in the TOTS, but if he gets any other position – don’t blame me. In my eyes he deserves TOTS and he played really well. Sometimes, often carried Juventus, especially in the first part of the season.
Other winger is Domenico Berardi, Sassulo's main man. He had a very good season and deserves to be in TOTS, if it's not him then we have another candidate from Sassuolo – it’s Jeremie Boga. Both Sassuolo wingers had strong seasons and have a chance to improve their statistics later.
Strikers:
Not only strikers, but attackers overall.
Because you can’t name Josip Ilicic and Alejandro Gomez only “strikers”. Atalanta have been scoring for fun, Ilicic probably the best player in Serie A this year and Papu Gomez is just sensational player as usual. Both get in, both deserved and both insane players.
Romelu Lukaku is my main choice from Inter. Lautaro had a good season too, but Lukaku imo outshined him and scored more goals. A big season after being criticized at Man Utd, he's really bounced back and have shown how important he is to Inter.
Joao Pedro is kinda a wild-pick but he scored a lot of goals (16 currently) and overall he’s just a really consistent goal scorer for Cagliari. Maybe he won’t get it, but imo it’s a deserved nominee.
Cristiano Ronaldo – of course he’s here. No wonder. No one will complain, right?
Ciro Immobile – best goalscorer right now in the world, insane year for Ciro and Lazio. What a guy.
Overall, this is my idea on how Serie A TOTS will be released, but of course expect some differences and different players to get in, I can’t predict ideal TOTS, but this should be somewhat close it. I hope so. And I hope you enjoyed this article.