The 2015–16 Serie A (known as the

Serie A The Serie A (), officially known as Serie A Enilive in Italy and Serie A Made in Italy abroad for sponsorship reasons, is a professional association football league in Italy and the highest tier of the Italian football league system. Establish ...

TIM for sponsorship reasons) was the 114th season of top-tier Italian

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...

, the 84th in a

round-robin tournament A round-robin tournament or all-play-all tournament is a competition format in which each contestant meets every other participant, usually in turn.''Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged'' (1971, G. & ...

, and the 6th since its organization under a league committee separate from

Serie B The Serie B (), officially known as Serie BKT for sponsorship reasons, is the second-highest division in the Italian football league system after the Serie A. It has been operating for over ninety years since the 1929–30 season. It had b ...

Juventus Juventus Football Club (; from , ), commonly known as Juventus or colloquially as Juve (), is an Italian professional Association football, football List of football clubs in Italy, club based in Turin, Piedmont, who compete in Serie A, the ...

were the defending champions. The campaign began on 22 August 2015 and ended on 15 May 2016. On 25 April 2016, Juventus succeeded in defending their title for the fifth consecutive season, after second placed

Napoli Naples ( ; ; ) is the regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 908,082 within the city's administrative limits as of 2025, while its province-level municipality is the thir ...

lost to Roma, giving

a 12-point lead with only three games left.

Events

On 28 April 2015 Carpi obtained its first promotion ever to

, after debuting in

the year before, becoming the 64th team to participate in Serie A since the 1929–30 season. On 16 May,

Frosinone Frosinone (; local dialect: ) is a ''comune'' (municipality) in the Italian region of Lazio, administrative seat of the province of Frosinone. It is about southeast of Rome, close to the Rome-Naples A1 Motorway. The city is the main city of th ...

also earned its first promotion to Serie A, becoming the 65th to participate. On 9 June 2015

Bologna Bologna ( , , ; ; ) is the capital and largest city of the Emilia-Romagna region in northern Italy. It is the List of cities in Italy, seventh most populous city in Italy, with about 400,000 inhabitants and 150 different nationalities. Its M ...

won Serie B play-off, returning to the Serie A after just one year. This season of Serie A was the first season to have

goal-line technology In association football, goal-line technology (sometimes referred to as a Goal Decision System) is the use of electronic aid to determine if a goal has been scored or not. In detail, it is a method used to determine when the ball has completely ...

implemented after severe complaints from various teams' general managers (first Adriano Galliani) in relation to controversial

ghost goal In association football, a ghost goal (or phantom goal) is either a goal wrongly awarded despite the ball not having crossed the Goal line (football), goal line, or a goal wrongly not given despite the ball having crossed the line. In an attempt t ...

s during recent seasons of Serie A. On 20 March 2016,

Gianluigi Buffon Gianluigi Buffon (; born 28 January 1978) is an Italian former professional Association football, footballer who played as a Goalkeeper (association football), goalkeeper. Widely regarded as one of the greatest goalkeepers of all time, he is ...

broke the previous record of Sebastiano Rossi (929 minutes) by setting a longer period of 974 minutes without conceding a goal. On 14 May, Gonzalo Higuaín broke Gunnar Nordahl's record for most goals scored in Serie A (20 teams championship) in a season (35 in 1949–50) and equaled

Gino Rossetti Gino Rossetti (; 7 November 1904 – 15 May 1992) was an Italian football manager and former footballer who played as a forward. He jointly holds the record for the all-time most goals scored in a single Italian league season at 36 goals with ...

's record in 1928–29 (that was composed of 32 teams, instead) by scoring 36 goals and winning the

Capocannoniere The ''capocannoniere'' award (; ), known as Paolo Rossi Award since 2021, is awarded by the Italian Footballers' Association (AIC) to the highest goalscorer of each season in Italy's Serie A. From the 2010–11 season unti the change of denomina ...

. Three Serie A icons also retired at the end of the season; the

Verona Verona ( ; ; or ) is a city on the Adige, River Adige in Veneto, Italy, with 255,131 inhabitants. It is one of the seven provincial capitals of the region, and is the largest city Comune, municipality in the region and in Northeast Italy, nor ...

captain Luca Toni, who scored 157 goals in 324 league appearances and was twice the league's top scorer, as well as Gianpaolo Bellini, the

left-back In the sport of association football, a defender is an Glossary of association football terms#O, outfield player whose primary role is to stop attacks during the game and prevent the opposition from scoring. Defenders fall into four main categ ...

who spent his entire career with

Atalanta Atalanta (; ) is a heroine in Greek mythology. There are two versions of the huntress Atalanta: one from Arcadia (region), Arcadia, whose parents were Iasus and Clymene (mythology), Clymene and who is primarily known from the tales of the Caly ...

, making 435 appearances with the club. Both players also scored in their final games with their clubs on 8 May 2016, Toni in a 2–1 win over champions

and Bellini in a 1–1 draw with

Udinese Udinese Calcio (; "Udinese Football") is a professional football club based in Udine, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Italy. The team currently competes in the Serie A, the first tier of Italian football. It was founded on 30 November 1896 as a sport ...

; and on 14 May, Christian Abbiati for

Milan Milan ( , , ; ) is a city in northern Italy, regional capital of Lombardy, the largest city in Italy by urban area and the List of cities in Italy, second-most-populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of nea ...

in the last fixture of the season at home against Roma, however, he did not get any playing time, totaling 281 league appearances for the club.

Teams

Stadiums and locations

Personnel and kits

* Additionally, referee kits are now being made by

Diadora Diadora is an Italian sportswear and footwear manufacturing company based in Caerano di San Marco (Veneto), subsidiary of Geox, founded in 1948. Diadora produces football boots and athletic shoes, as well as a range of apparel that includes ...

, and Nike has a new match ball, the Ordem Serie A.

Managerial changes

League table

Results

Attendances

Season statistics

Top goalscorers

Hat-tricks

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:2015-16 Serie A Serie A seasons

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...