On May 19th, Juventus will take on Atalanta in this year's edition of the Coppa Italia. After a frustrating season in which the Bianconeri were dumped out of the Champions League and saw Inter pip them to the Scudetto for the first time since 2010, this could be Andrea Pirlo's last chance to win a trophy before his career on the tactician's bench comes to an end.
Once this year's Coppa Italia ends, there will be some big changes for the next version and others to come. Starting on August 15th, only 40 teams will be taking part. They will be:
- 20 teams from Serie A
- 20 teams from Serie B
This means that there will be no more teams from Serie C and Serie D involved in the competition.
The reason for this? Apparently, Italian football's governing body believes that it'd be better for both TV rights and viewers to have the teams from Serie A and Serie B feature, rather than lower level sides battling it out. Moreover, this year, no team from Serie C or D made it past the third round and in general, they don't tend to get to the round of 16 in any case.
That being said, fans haven't been pleased per se, as it eliminates the possibility of Cinderella stories of a smaller side making a run to the final - similar to what we've seen in the DFB-Pokal or the EFL Cup.
