The race for a place in Italy’s Serie A is heating up. The latest Serie B promotion odds suggest one team is all but guaranteed to be playing top flight football next season, however there’s a huge fight on for the other two promotion places.
The Italian system works similarly to the promotion battle in Spain and England with the top two gaining automatic promotion and one team going up via the play-offs. However there are a couple of extra play-off places meaning the team that finishes 8th could still end up in Serie A next term.
Serie B promotion odds – The teams fighting to go up
Parma (1/80)
Parma are the runaway leaders with an eight point advantage at the top and only eight games to play. The bookies reckon this is virtually a done deal with an implied probability of 98.8% that they go up.
They head into the international break in great form after three straight wins and having lost just three league games all season and look set to return to Serie A after three seasons in the second tier.
Venezia (Evens)
The race for the second automatic promotion slot is much more interesting though with just two points currently separating second and fourth in the table. Venezia are currently the highest ranked of those sides and they’ve an excellent 57% win ratio in the league this term.
The bookies can barely split them but Venezia are slight favourites. They’re an attacking side that also boasts the second best goalscoring record in the division with 1.87 goals per game on average.
Cremonese (11/10)
Cremonese are a point worse off than Venezia having surrendered second place with a surprise 3-0 defeat to Südtirol on the last matchday which did real damage to their promotion push.
That result was most out of character for a team that has been outstanding defensively this season. Before Saturday’s match, they were averaging just 0.72 goals conceded per game and had kept clean sheets in 48% of their league fixtures.
Como (6/5)
Como are the third team in with a real shot at the second automatic place according to the latest Serie A promotion odds. More than 20 years have passed since they were last in Serie A, but with the help of some foreign investment and personnel, they’re mounting a really strong challenge.
Currently under the guidance of Welsh caretaker boss Osian Roberts, this ambitious club are particularly strong at home in their picturesque lakeside region of Italy where they’ve amassed 31 points this term.
Palermo (6/1)
Over in Sicily, Palermo fans are desperate for a return to the top flight. They’ve even dropped down to Serie C since they were last in the top division in 2017 but the club appears to be on firmer footing now.
Along with Catanzaro who also have 49 points, they look all but guaranteed a play-off place, but are unlikely to have enough to challenge for automatic promotion after a damaging run of three defeats from four games.
Success-laden personnel looking after Como
From an outside perspective, Como’s story is the most interesting. They were in the fourth tier as recently as the 2018/19 season and are hoping to follow the lead of Monza who also benefited from fresh investment to rise through the leagues and take their current place in Serie A.
Following severe financial problems, the club was acquired by Akosua Puni Essien, wife of the Ghanaian footballer Michael Essien and although there has been a subsequent takeover, the Chelsea connections have continued with Dennis Wise the current president while Cesc Fabregas played for the club and was briefly caretaker manager earlier this season.
The former Spain international is also a minority shareholder along with the likes of former Arsenal and France legend Thierry Henry. The arrival of some genuine football A-listers to Como is clearly having the desired impact with the club right in the hunt for promotion to Serie A and with an exciting end to the season ahead of them.
