The Serie A title race is becoming one of the most competitive stories of recent years. The fall of Juventus and the improvement of the league both as a proposition and individually, with several teams improving year on year – Inter, Milan, Napoli, Atalanta; with Roma and Lazio always close behind – the Italian league is now an undisputed source of interest for football fans.
This season, reigning champions Inter are once again setting the pace – with Milan and Napoli soon to follow – thanks to the work done in recent years during the two-year Conte period and Inzaghi’s good work in adapting the team to his liking and cushioning the departure of Lukaku and Hakimi with the arrival of Dzeko and Calhanoglu. Whether it will be second star is a very topical question and will be answered by a number of factors, including, set pieces – free kicks and corners – always crucial to making the difference and gaining those 7 or 8 points over rivals.
This is the scatter plot of the Serie A teams that have generated the most Expected Goals (xG) from actions and the most Expected Goals (xG) from set pieces.
If we look at the table with the numerical data, we see that José Mourinho’s Roma is the Italian team that generates the most Expected Goals from set pieces and the one that generates the highest percentage of set pieces out of the total xG, with 30.9%. Among the title contenders, Inter is the team that has generated the most goals from set pieces (8.5%), well ahead of AC Milan (5.1%) and Napoli (5.8%).
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