The 2004–05 Serie A (known as the Serie A TIM for sponsorship reasons) was the 103rd season of top-tier Italian football, the 73rd in a round-robin tournament. It was expanded to contain 20 clubs, which played 38 matches against each other, rather than the 34 matches in previous seasons, while relegations were reduced to three. The Coppa Campioni d'Italia was presented to the winners on the pitch for the first time.
The first two teams qualified directly to UEFA Champions League, teams ending in the third and fourth places had to play Champions League qualifications, teams ending in the fifth and sixth places qualified to UEFA Cup (another spot was given to the winner of Coppa Italia), while only the last three teams were to be relegated in Serie B, the Italian second division, following a regulations change.
Juventus finished in first place but were later stripped of the title as a result of the Calciopoli scandal. As a result, there was no winner or runner-up in the 2004-05 competition, but the European competition places for higher positions in the table remained. Milan ended the campaign in second place, however they are not considered runners-up due to the scandal. Udinese qualified for the UEFA Champions League for the first time in its history. Palermo, in its first Serie A campaign in over 30 years, finished in sixth place, qualifying for the UEFA Cup for the first time in its history. Roma qualified for the UEFA Cup as the runners-up in the Coppa Italia because the cup winner, Internazionale, had already qualified for the Champions League.
Two teams, Brescia and Atalanta, were directly relegated to Serie B, while the third relegation place was to be decided among three teams (Fiorentina, Bologna and Parma), counting only the so-called classifica avulsa; that is, the table composed solely by the six matches among the three teams. Bologna and Parma had fewer points, and played the relegation tiebreaker. The tiebreaker was won by Parma, who were defeated 0–1 at home but won 0–2 away in the return match. This method of classifying teams on equal points totals was abolished for the 2005–06 season but returned for the 2022–23 season.
Personnel and sponsoring
Team Head coach Kit manufacturer Shirt sponsor Atalanta* Delio Rossi Asics Promatech Bologna Carlo Mazzone Macron Amica Chips Brescia Alberto Cavasin Kappa Banca Lombarda e Piemontese Cagliari* Daniele Arrigoni A-Line Terra Sarda Chievo Maurizio D'Angelo Lotto Paluani/Columbia TriStar Film Distributors International Fiorentina* Dino Zoff Adidas Toyota Internazionale Roberto Mancini Nike Pirelli Juventus Fabio Capello Nike Sky Sport/Tamoil (in UEFA matches) Lazio Giuseppe Papadopulo Puma Parmacotto Lecce Zdeněk Zeman Asics Salento Livorno* Roberto Donadoni Asics Banca Carige Messina* Bortolo Mutti Legea Caffè Miscela d'Oro, Regione Siciliana/Air MaltaMilan Carlo Ancelotti Adidas Opel Parma Pietro Carmignani Champion Champion Palermo* Francesco Guidolin Lotto +39 Challenge, Provincia di Palermo Reggina Walter Mazzarri Asics Gicos, Stocco&Stocco Roma Bruno Conti Diadora Mazda Sampdoria Walter Novellino Kappa Erg Siena Luigi De Canio Lotto Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena Udinese Luciano Spalletti Le Coq Sportif Kia Motors (*) Promoted from Serie B.
League table
Results
Relegation tie-breaker
Bologna relegated to Serie B.
Top goalscorers RankPlayerClubGoals 1 Cristiano LucarelliLivorno 24 2 Alberto GilardinoParma 23 3 Vincenzo MontellaRoma 21 4 Luca ToniPalermo 20 5 Mirko VučinićLecce 19 6 Andriy ShevchenkoMilan 17 7 AdrianoInternazionale 16 Mauro EspositoCagliari Zlatan IbrahimovićJuventus 10 David Di MicheleUdinese 15 11 Alessandro Del PieroJuventus 14 Francesco FlachiSampdoria 13 Valeri BojinovLecce, Fiorentina 13 Tommaso RocchiLazio Vincenzo IaquintaUdinese Christian VieriInternazionale
Attendances
Source:https://www.european-football-statistics.co.uk/attn/archive/ita/aveita05.htm
# Club Avg. attendance Highest 1 AC Milan 63,595 79,775 2 Internazionale 57,295 78,471 3 Roma 49,631 69,488 4 Lazio 37,516 64,734 5 Fiorentina 34,202 45,909 6 Palermo 33,230 34,271 7 Messina 29,737 37,582 8 Juventus 26,429 54,181 9 Sampdoria 23,669 32,102 10 Bologna 19,004 30,796 11 Reggina 16,261 21,445 12 Lecce 16,114 30,482 13 Udinese 15,810 24,504 14 Livorno 15,334 19,726 15 Atalanta 14,689 21,962 16 Parma 14,044 23,010 17 Cagliari 13,579 22,500 18 Chievo 12,103 29,450 19 Siena 9,461 14,604 20 Brescia 7,749 16,504
References and sources
Almanacco Illustrato del Calcio 2006, Panini Edizioni, Modena, November 2006
External links - All results on RSSSF Website. 2004/2005 Serie A Squads - (www.footballsquads.com)