In the wake of the match-fixing scandal that resulted in mighty Juventus being relegated to Serie B and four other teams, including traditional contenders AC Milan, Fiorentina and Lazio, being penalized points in the standings, Inter Milan begins the 2006-07 season as the clear favorite to win the Italian league, which opens this weekend.
Inter hasn't won a Scudetto on the field in 17 seasons but was awarded the 2005-06 title when first-place Juventus was stripped of its championship. It spent heavily on the transfer market, signing Argentine Hernan Crespo from Chelsea and French midfielder Patrick Vieira and Swedish striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic from Juventus. Inter also signed Palermo defender Fabio Grosso, one of the standouts on Italy's World Cup championship team.
Here's how the other major clubs were affected by the transfer market.
* At AC Milan, which begins the season with an eight-point penalty, all the pressure will be on Brazilian striker Ricardo Oliveira, brought in from Real Betis to replace star Andriy Shevchenko, who was sold to Chelsea. Oliveira joins Filippo Inzaghi and Alberto Gilardino in one of Serie A's best attacks.
* The signing of 22-year-old Mirko Vucinic, who scored 28 goals in his last two Serie A seasons with Lecce, should give Roma, second in the revised 2005-06 standings, the goal production it needs to challenge for the title. Roma was the only other major team unscathed by the recent scandal.
* Lazio, which travels to AC Milan for a tough opener on Sunday, begins the season with a 11-point hole. Even worse, it sold midfielders Fabio Liverani and Ousmane Dabo without finding adequate replacements on the transfer market.
The other clubs penalized for their roles in the match-fixing scandal are Fiorentina, which begins the season with minus-19 points, and Reggina, which will struggle to overcome a 15-point penalty.
Turin's two clubs traded places. Torino won promotion from Serie B, while Juventus was dropped. Just two days before the start of the season, Torino fired Coach Gianni De Biasi and replaced him with former AC Milan coach Alberto Zaccheroni.
Italian Serie A on U.S. TV: Gol TV, Fox Soccer Channel, Fox Sports en Espanol, RAI International.