This story was originally published by Dead Spin
While one “football” season doesn’t start until next month when the Ravens and Chiefs take the field on the first Thursday in September, the semi-official opening weekend of the 2024–25 season of the original ‘football’ will wrap up today with the Premier League, Serie A, Ligue 1 and La Liga.
All picks today will be from Monday’s games in three of those superb European leagues. Sorry moms, your Saturday mornings—and maybe afternoons and evenings—are ruined for a few months.
Premier League: Tottenham Hotspur vs. Leicester City, 3 p.m. ET
We’ve all heard the jokes about the Spurs and their lack of recent trophies and player movement this offseason.
Maybe this year will be different in the club’s second go-around under Aussie Ange Postecoglou?
It will take a while to see if that’s actually the case, but I like them in the opener here on the road with as upbeat as a traveling Spurs crowd might be all season, and against a promoted side with a new manager missing three key players to injuries in Jamie Vardy, Patson Daka and Conor Coady.
With that said, Spurs were pretty awful for the most part away from home last season, winning just three of their final 13 games on the road, but that was after a very good start to their travels (14 points from first six trips).
Unlike the Foxes, though, they are relatively healthy coming into this one and should have new signing Dom Solanke up top looking to make a great first impression.
Seeing something like a 2-1 win here, so take the home team, but no clean sheet.
Spurs to win and BTTS (+170 on DraftKings)
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Serie A: Juventus vs. Como, 2:45 p.m. ET
Juventus looked like potential title contenders heading into Christmas last season, but then the wheels completely fell off for the legendary club after the turn of the year.
As a result, there was a bizarre late-season firing of coach Max Allegri and the subsequent hiring of Thiago Motta from Bologna.
The Juve fans do have a Champions League campaign to look forward to, though, so not all is a complete mess heading into the season, and their team is traditionally a great opening-day pick, having won seven of their last eight Scudetto starters.
Como, meanwhile, are back up in the top league for the first time in more than two decades and start their season with three straight away contests.
Have to favor the gents in black and white here, but I have a feeling the goals may be a little hard to come by with Como sitting back and trying to counter.
See what Torino did vs. Milan over the weekend, and you get the idea, other than those two super-late goals to ruin the under.
Juventus to win, under 2.5 goals (+230 at DraftKings)
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La Liga: Villarreal at Atletico Madrid, 3:30 p.m. ET
Atletico will open their campaign on the road as they look to continue their domination of Villarreal, seeking to extend their road undefeated streak over the Yellow Submarine to eight straight.
Former Villarreal striker Alexander Sorloth will be on the visiting side this time and surely looking to get on the scoreboard to continue Atletico’s domination in this series, as they’ve avoided defeat in 11 of their last 12 meetings at all venues.
I like the visitors to get off to a solid start here as they seek to improve on their fourth-place finish from last campaign.
Atletico Madrid: -1.5 goals (+250 on DraftKings)
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