Juventus’s Cristiano Ronaldo heralds lift in Serie A mood for new season | Paolo Bandini

Transfer coup means Juve want to win the Champions League while Inter are likely to be their closest challengers at home

This was supposed to be a grim summer for Italian football supporters. For the first time in six decades a World Cup was taking place without their national team present. As the tournament in Russia got under way, the outgoing sports minister, Luca Lotti, portrayed the moment as calcio’s “Year Zero”.

The fans themselves, though, did not seem so troubled by the prospect of a World Cup without the Azzurri. Mediaset recorded a cumulative TV audience of 297 million across this summer’s 64 games – 49 million more than the previous rights holders, Rai and Sky, had achieved between them in 2014.

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