Odds to Win Serie A Scoring Race: Can Anyone Beat Ronaldo?

• Odds to be the Serie A top scorer see Juventus’ Cristiano Ronaldo as the heavy favorite 
• Can the Portuguese star take home the honor during his first season in Italy?
• In a close race, could there be value elsewhere?

In his first season in Italy’s Serie A, Portuguese star Cristiano Ronaldo has wasted little time in making himself known in his new home.

Ronaldo now leads the Serie A goal-scoring race with 14 goals. He’s also the odds-on favorite at -500 to keep that lead.

Odds to Score Most Serie A Goals

Odds as of 01/15/19. 

Ronaldo Takes Serie A By Storm

Thus far Ronaldo has been worth the €100m transfer fee paid to Real Madrid to bring the 33-year-old to Juventus. Ronaldo has goals in 11 Serie A matches and has scored twice on three occasions.

Winning scoring races is nothing new for Ronaldo, having done so once in the Premier League and three times in La Liga. Last year his 26 goals were second only to Messi’s 34 in Spain.

🇵🇹 @Cristiano Ronaldo in @SerieA_TIM this season:

🏟 19 Games
⚽️ 14 Goals
🎯 5 Assists

📈 Top goalscorer in @SerieA_TIM.

🇵🇹 Highest scoring Portuguese player in a Serie A season.

⚫️⚪️ Scored @JuventusFC’s 100th goal in 2018 in all competitions.

👑 Scores wherever he goes. pic.twitter.com/7tMlvGVmfl

— SPORF (@Sporf) December 29, 2018

Ronaldo and Mario Mandžukić have led the line for Juve this season with a combined 22 goals. Mandžukić is set to miss the next month though with a thigh injury. Without Mandžukić it could either mean more opportunities for Ronaldo or see him dealing with extra defenders.

Ronaldo clearly still has it and his ego alone will motivate him to capture a scoring title in three of Europe’s top leagues. The concern has to be the threat of injury at his age. Even last season he only played in 27 La Liga games.

Cristiano Ronaldo has now been directly involved in 19 goals in 19 Serie A games.

Juventus top goal scorer ✔️
Serie A top goal scorer ✔️
Second most assists ✔️
Most goals involvement ✔️

🐐 pic.twitter.com/ZVoOY9hotZ

— TCR. (@TeamCRonaldo) January 10, 2019

There’s also the fact that Juventus can basically cruise to the finish line this year to win Serie A. As the season wears on and the fixture list intensifies in other competitions, Massimiliano Allegri could elect to rest the striker for more important games.

Deep Group of Strikers to Choose From

It took 29 goals to win the scoring title last season when both Mauro Icardi and Ciro Immobile finished on top. It was the second time Icardi has won the scoring title since coming to Inter.

Icardi hit a career-high last year but has scored eight fewer after 19 matches this year. Perhaps the distraction of a contract dispute with Inter has slowed his pace.

Mauro Icardi's agent says that a new deal with Inter is "a very long way off” 👀 pic.twitter.com/BdWRtPYv8x

— B/R Football (@brfootball) January 9, 2019

Immobile looks to be well off pace from last season as well, with six fewer goals than he had at this point last year.

The league’s third-highest scoring side, Napoli, sees all of Lorenzo Insigne, Dries Mertens, and Arkadiusz Milik in contention. Milik leads that group with 10 goals. My concern with Milik is that he’s only started 11 of Napoli’s 19 matches, while playing the full 90 just six times.

The man closest to Ronaldo in the scoring race is Krzysztof Piatek from Genoa. Piatek has just one less goal and odds of +800. It’s been an incredible first Serie A season for the Polish international who has fewer shots on target (38) to only Ronaldo’s 57.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOQgD-zGtqY

However, spend a few minutes on Twitter and you’ll find Piatek linked to transfer rumors to Real Madrid, Barcelona, Crystal Palace, and AC Milan. A move to Milan would at least keep him in Serie A and alive in the scoring race. Yet the threat of his departure from Italy would give me reservations.

One player not going anywhere is Sampdoria’s Fabio Quagliarella. He just signed a new contract with Samp in December and is proving age is no more than a number at 35.

HEAD-TO-HEAD: Cristiano Ronaldo vs Fabio Quagliarella

Two forwards proving age is but a number go head-to-head in Serie A's early kick. No other player has had a direct hand in more goals than either of the two.

Juventus vs Sampdoria match preview — https://t.co/MtQFrooGDJ pic.twitter.com/4AebEyEZsU

— WhoScored.com (@WhoScored) December 29, 2018

Quagliarella has 10 goals over his last nine matches. That makes him the first player to score in nine straight Serie A matches since David Trezeguet in 2005.

The former Italian international has shown no signs of slowing down by starting 18/19 matches, while playing 80 minutes or more 15 times. He’s also taken the fourth-most shots on target in the league. His 12 goals are quickly approaching his career-high of 19 he set last year.

Best Bets:  Fabio Quagliarella (+2000)