Let’s hand out some 2024/25 Serie A Midseason Awards with about half the campaign left to go in 2025 and a truly enthralling title race on tap with just about no way of separating the myriad of contenders thus far.
Although Serie A remained entertaining in the 2022/23 and 2023/24 seasons with Napoli exorcising their Scudetto demons of the past and Inter Milan returning to the summit whilst Bologna wrote a fairytale script in the background, it’s been a bit since we’ve seen a truly compelling title race in Italian football.
The 2024/25 campaign is shaping up to be a different beast entirely with reigning champions Inter, a rebounding Napoli, and a high-flying Atalanta all within a point of each other at the top of the table.
Behind them, Lazio, Fiorentina, and Juventus are also legitimately in the hunt, meaning the second half of the season will be one of the most captivating in ages and as enthralling as any league’s title battle, including LaLiga’s three-way race among their traditional heavyweights.
At the halfway mark of the season and with the new year coming, it’s time to hand out 2024/25 Serie A Midseason Awards highlighting the best – and briefly the most disappointing – of the campaign’s opening stanza.
Best Manager
Gian Piero Gasperini is the obvious choice as the best manager at the 2024/25 Serie A Midseason Awards, and he’s done so brilliantly over the years to turn Atalanta in to a perennial Champions League contender.
Last season, Atalanta hoisted major silverware with the Europa League title, blowing out a previously undefeated Bayer Leverkusen in a triumph for the ages. This season, they’ve been even better, keeping up with reigning Scudetto winners Inter Milan while also battling a resurgent Napoli under another very valid Manager of the Year contender in Antonio Conte.
But the way Gasperini is getting the most out of his players in Bergamo with his philosophy is truly remarkable. He has turned Mateo Retegui and Charles De Ketelaere into two of the best attacking players in all of Europe, and he even has Nicolo Zaniolo playing a positive role off the bench.
Best Goalkeeper
Serie A might have the best goalkeepers of any league in the world right now. Big names like Yann Sommer and Mike Maignan in the city of Milano headline the list, and underrated stars like Michele Di Gregorio and Alex Meret are also having fine seasons to assert themselves as among the world’s best in their own right.
Yet if we are solely looking at the 2024/25 season thus far, David de Gea is, hands down, the winner of the best goalkeeper in the league, and his story is truly remarkable.
De Gea was once arguably the best keeper in the world alongside the likes of Manuel Neuer and Thibaut Courtois, making some of the most stunning reflex saves of the 2010s on a routine basis for Manchester United.
But somewhere along the way, De Gea’s play fell off, and he was written for dead by Man United, like so many other once-great players. Now, De Gea is adding to United’s misery by shining in Florence, where he is in the top five of most major goalkeeping statistics including post-shot expected goals prevented, save percentage (second), and goals allowed per 90 (second).
Best Defender
Alessandro Buongiorno was arguably the best defender in Serie A last season, and he’s stepped in at Napoli to give the Partenopei a much-needed boost at the back after the team sorely missed breakout star Kim Min-jae last season.
Kim left Napoli just a season after helping them run away with the Scudetto in 2023. Now, Buongiorno, if anything, has been an upgrade on even Kim, forming one of the best center back partnerships in Serie A alongside Amir Rrahmani.
Compared to Italian legend Giorgio Chiellini, Buongiorno can build a legacy of his own in Naples. The 25-year-old is just entering his prime and has averaged 3.3 combined tackles and interceptions with just 0.2 dribbles completed allowed per game.
Best Midfielder
While the selections for each of the other “best” awards are quite straightforward, picking the best midfielder of the midway point in the 2024/25 Serie A campaign is a bit more difficult.
Actually, all three of the top contenders hail from Inter in Nicolo Barella, Hakan Calhanoglu, and even wing back Federico Dimarco. But because Dimarco isn’t really a midfielder, he’s out of this award in the most technical sense.
The edge goes to Calhanoglu for playing excellent defense and playmaking at a high level as the regista in the Inter lineup. Simone Inzaghi’s decision to move the former Milan man into a regista role has paid off handsomely.
Although Calhanoglu was a great attacking midfielder in the Bundesliga and Serie A over the years, he has more of an impact and can age more gracefully as a defensive midfielder, stepping up his defensive duties in his new role with poise and confidence.
Best Forward
Marcus Thuram has picked up the slack for Lautaro Martinez and proven to be an upgrade on Romelu Lukaku at the top of the Inter Milan attack, but, clearly, Ademola Lookman has to be chosen as the best forward in Serie A for the league leaders.
Lookman has been an absolute terror to Serie A defenses, and although he’s been a quality player for a couple of seasons since stepping foot in Bergamo, he’s truly taken off this year with Atalanta in the driver’s seat of the tight Scudetto race.
The Nigerian superstar has scored 9 goals and 5 assists on the current campaign with a whopping 2.2 key passes per match, shining more brightly than ever as a playmaker while still offering more direct goal threat than arguably anyone else in Serie A.
Best Young Player
Real Madrid academy graduate Nico Paz could have easily had a role at the Merengues in 2024/25 if it were solely based on his own quality, but because Real are so stacked on playmakers, they had to give away the Spanish gem to the Italian top flight.
Ambitious newcomers Como haven’t quite dazzled with many of their veteran big names flopping hard, but Nico Paz has been a bright light in the club’s bid for first-year survival.
He played a key role again in Como’s last game, a 2-0 win over Lecce. One of the best breakout playmakers in all of European football this season, Paz is averaging 1.9 key passes and 2.1 dribbles completed per game.
Biggest Surprise
Moise Kean never took off in his return to Turin after initially showing a great deal of promise as a prospect for Juve, and he even once scored 13 goals in a season for PSG.
But Kean was horrible in his second stint with the Bianconeri, turning in an especially dismal 2023/24 season that led to his ultimate sale to Fiorentina. Almost immediately, Kean has been on a revenge tour, and he even scored in his return to the Allianz Stadium as part of a 2-2 draw for the Viola.
Fiorentina are ahead of Juventus in the table and are legitimate Serie A title contenders. They have a deep squad, but Kean is the real star of the show as the quality striker the Viola have spent years trying to acquire, having watched the likes of Arthur Cabral and Luka Jovic flounder up top.
Kean has a whopping 11 goals at the halfway mark of the Serie A campaign while averaging 1.6 dribbles completed and 1.8 fouls drawn per game to prove that he is indeed one of the most well-rounded No. 9’s in Europe.
Biggest Disappointment
There are so many candidates between AC Milan and Roma for this “honor”, including the entire teams themselves, and there are even a couple of high-profile players at other top Serie A clubs that merit mention.
Yet at the end of the day, I can’t think of a more profoundly disappointing player in the 2024/25 season than Roma attacking midfielder Lorenzo Pellegrini, who has been so woeful that the one-time starting fixture now can’t get a game for the Giallorossi – and that’s really all for the better.
His passing has been substandard with a completion percentage below 85 and his lack of defensive output is simply untenable for a Roma side that has struggled this season and is loaded with playmaking options after acquiring Matias Soule to add to Paulo Dybala.
Pellegrini’s Roma future is now at a crossroads after previously being their indispensible captain, as Inter Milan and other Serie A clubs will look to revive him in the summer window.
Best Overall Player
Ademola Lookman has to be the choice here. He just edged out Inter striker Marcus Thuram for the best forward of the midseason, and so he has to take home the overall honors at the 2024/25 Serie A Midseason Awards for his all-around attacking excellence, never-say-die attitude, and end product for league leaders Atalanta.
The managing editor of The Trivela Effect, Kevin has 15 years of experience in digital media. He covered Real Madrid from 2019-2022 for The Real Champs as a site manager. You can contact him at the site’s official Twitter handle @TrivelaEffect or via the site’s official email thetrivelaeffect@gmail.com.