BBC's Italian Job: 38 Live Serie A Matches Head to Free-to-Air TV This Season

Football fans in the UK are in for an Italian treat this season, with BBC ALBA and BBC Sport teaming up to deliver a package of 38 live matches from Serie A, Italy's top flight. The coverage kicks off on Sunday with Atalanta taking on Sassuolo, giving viewers a free front-row seat to one of Europe's most storied leagues. The news was first reported by BBC Sport. The deal represents a significant boost for free-to-air football coverage. While subscription services have dominated live domestic and European football in recent years, this agreement ensures that some of the biggest names and most compelling storylines from Italian football remain accessible to all. Matches will be shown across BBC platforms, with Gaelic-language channel BBC ALBA — a partnership between BBC Scotland and MG ALBA — at the heart of the coverage, and streaming available through BBC iPlayer and the BBC Sport website. The season opener offers an intriguing fixture. Atalanta, the club from Bergamo who have become one of Serie A's most compelling overachievers under long-serving manager Gian Piero Gasperini, host Sassuolo, a side with a reputation for playing attractive, front-foot football. Gasperini's high-energy, aggressive pressing system has won admirers across Europe, and Atalanta's clashes with the division's traditional heavyweights are consistently among the most anticipated fixtures in the Italian calendar. Indeed, the 38-match schedule promises no shortage of star power. Serie A remains home to iconic institutions — Juventus, AC Milan, Inter, Napoli, Roma and Lazio among them — and a roll call of international talent that stretches across the globe. That global reach is particularly relevant with the FIFA World Cup 2026 on the horizon. When the expanded 48-team tournament, co-hosted by the United States, Mexico and Canada, gets underway in the summer of 2026, Serie A's squads are expected to supply players to national teams from every confederation. For supporters looking to scout the stars of tomorrow's World Cup, weekly exposure to Italian football on the BBC is a valuable resource. Italy themselves, painfully absent from the last two World Cups, will be desperate to return to the biggest stage — and the form of their Serie A-based contingent could prove decisive in that quest. For now, though, the focus is simple: 38 matches, free to air, starting with Atalanta v Sassuolo on Sunday. Settle in, tune in, and enjoy the drama of Italian football — with one eye firmly fixed on 2026. Source: BBC Sport