The Serie A fixtures will be drawn up today, with a strict set of criteria governing how the games will fall.
While each side will play each other home and away, with the first 19 fixtures reversed for the second part of the season, the draw isn’t completely random.
For the final four rounds of the season, matches will be alternated between home and away – no side can have two home games or two away games between Weeks 35 and 38.
Throughout the season, no team can have more than two consecutive home or away matches.
The Serie A fixtures will be drawn up today, with a strict set of criteria governing how the games will fall.
While each side will play each other home and away, with the first 19 fixtures reversed for the second part of the season, the draw isn’t completely random.
For the final four rounds of the season, matches will be alternated between home and away – no side can have two home games or two away games between Weeks 35 and 38.
Throughout the season, no team can have more than two consecutive home or away matches.
In addition, none of Empoli and Fiorentina, Juventus and Torino, Roma and Lazio, Milan and Inter and Genoa and Sampdoria can be at home in the same week.
In the midweek rounds, Inter, Juventus, Lazio, Milan, Napoli and Roma cannot play each other, while the Genoa, Rome, Turin and Milan derbies also cannot be played in midweek.
Those matches cannot be played in either Week 1 or Week 38, and two derbies cannot be played in the same round.
Teams who met in Week 1 in either 2016-17 or 2017-18 cannot play each other on the first weekend this year. So, for example, Fiorentina cannot play Juventus or Inter, regardless of whether the fixture is home or away.
The same applies for the final weekend of the season, and there can be no repeat fixtures from last season: i.e two teams meeting in the same round with the same home/away setup.
Inter, Juventus, Napoli and Roma, who have qualified for the Champions League, cannot play Europa League representatives Atalanta, Lazio or Milan in Week 5, Week 8, Week 13 or Week 16.
For teams sharing a stadium, the side which was at home for the first day of last season will be away for the first fixture of the new season – Lazio will be at home, Inter will be away and Genoa will be at home.
Any team who had an away fixture to finish last season will have a home game this time, so Juventus, Napoli, Milan and Lazio will be away, while Inter and Roma will be at home.
Big events in cities around Serie A will also be taken into account to avoid putting a strain on policing.
For example, Bologna are away from home on October 6 due to the Tour of Emilia and Fiorentina will be away on September 16 for the World Volleyball Championship and on November 11 due to a match for the Italian rugby team.
Napoli’s first match is away from home due to redevelopment works on the Stadio San Paolo, and they’ll also be away on February 24 because of the Oltremare Half Marathon.