Article 77 — Juventus Drop Points But It Doesn’t Matter
Juventus dropped points in two consecutive match weeks. It could have opened the door for the title race to their rivals but it was a gift not taken. It’s a very familiar pattern to title “races” of the past seasons.
There have been seasons where Juventus have been flawless and just ran away with the league title, no-one can stop them or touch them. Then there are seasons where they have a slow start, giving their rivals hope that they can be caught and their reign could end. Slowly they clawback at the lead, go top and stay there. Then there are seasons where they don’t look as good as they used to, somehow they make it top, face strong challenges, drop out of the top spot at some point in the season but at the business end find themselves on top and go on to win the title.
The last of those scenarios is the case here. From the start of the season, there have been teething problems between new manager, Maurizio Sarri and the team as he tried to implement his style of play. They have looked beatable this season and they have been. The issue lies with their challengers. In the past, Roma and Napoli have not made a good fist of the title race as they fizzle out in the business end. This season, it is Lazio and Inter that have fizzled out.
Lazio has lost three consecutive matches including a shock 1–2 defeat to relegation-threatened, Lecce and losing a 1–0 lead to lose late on 2–1 to Sassuolo at home. Ciro Immobile’s goals have dried up, Sergej Milinkovic-Savic and Luis Alberto are less influential and the defence is not tight enough. You can feel that Lazio is just about hanging on now. The consecutive losses have seen Lazio drop to third, eight points behind Juventus.
Inter are having their usual second half of the season slump. Antonio Conte looks to have lost his way, the team is mentally fragile and weak and the players are out of form. There have been injury problems as well in midfield. However, Inter’s 3–1 win over Torino has propelled them over Lazio into second place but also find themselves eight points behind Juventus. If only Inter had not dropped so many needless points from the turn of the year. If only they had not drawn against Sassuolo and Hellas Verona and lost to Bologna after taking the lead. In terms of squad strength and depth, Inter is the closest to Juventus so it is a right shame that Inter hasn’t provided a stronger challenge.
Juventus amazingly lost a 2–0 lead to lost 4–2 to in-form AC Milan and needed two penalties to draw 2–2 against another in-form team, Atalanta. Gifts given to the chasing pack but no-one good and strong enough to capitalise. Different season, same story, so frustrating.
For the life of me, I cannot envisage Juventus carrying on to hand out gifts or at least too many gifts between now and the end of the season. On paper, their next match against Sassuolo could be a game where they might drop points but for Sassuolo’s electrifying attack, they have an equally porous defence. Juventus would still need to play the Roman teams, Lazio and Roma and both matches are too unpredictable because we aren’t sure which Lazio and Roma will turn up. The league title is as good as gone for another season to Juventus.
Inter will need to win ALL their remaining matches and hope for some favours from Juventus’ opponents if they are to mount an unlikely title challenge at this point. They have a tough run coming up as they got to play against Roma, Napoli and Atalanta. Fiorentina too could be tricky as they are one of the teams we lost our lead to. For that matter, anyone can be a threat as Inter can beat anyone on their day and lose to anyone. We are too inconsistent. It’s likely to be another season where we promised a lot but delivered little.
On paper, Lazio has only got Juventus and Napoli to face that can be considered strong challenges. Hellas Verona will be tricky. They were on a fairytale run and I always wondered if they had what it took to sustain the distance. I was hoping that if it’s not Inter, then Lazio can be the ones to topple Juventus but it wasn’t the case. They had the benefit of playing once a week and that advantage has been taken from them now after the re-start to the season. Their lack of squad depth has been found wanting. Maintaining their position for a place in the Champions League is probably the best end result they can hope for.
Atalanta, are one of the in-form teams in the league. They are scoring goals for fun this season. At the time of writing this, they had just smashed six goals past neighbours, Brescia to bring their season tally for goals scored to 93 goals! Momentarily, they find themselves six points behind Juventus. If they keep this form going and if Juventus keeps slipping up, they are the best bet to topple Juventus. There are still some tricky matches on the horizon like against Bologna, Hellas Verona and Parma and two tough ones against Milan and Inter. They fully deserve a place in the Champions League next season. If they get something better than that this season, it would be a Hollywood-style, fairytale ending. Football needs one of that right now.
Elsewhere in the chase for the Europa League spots, Roma won their last 2 matches, 2–1 at home to Parma and 3–0 away to Brescia to open up a two-point lead over Napoli. Napoli has already qualified for the Europa League through winning the Coppa Italia so they are not in the race at all. Gennaro Gattuso has surprised me with the way he has got his team playing and the results they have achieved.
Roma is four points away from AC Milan, the last team in the spot to qualify for the Europa League. Milan had a fantastic 4–2 win over Juventus and a tough 2–2 draw against Napoli in their last two matches. Significantly for them, the teams chasing them are four points away. Sassuolo is in that position after beating Bologna and Lazio 2–1 away from home. Hellas Verona has slipped six points behind Milan after a 2–2 draw at home to Inter and 1–1 draw away to Fiorentina.
Cagliari and Parma both had a shot of getting into the mix for a place in the Europa League next season but now find themselves comfortably in mid-table.
Fiorentina and Sampdoria are finding themselves drifting away from the relegation zone and closer to mid-table after recent results. Fiorentina drew 0–0 and 1–1 against Cagliari and Hellas Verona at home respectively. Fiorentina is now seven points clear of the drop zone. Sampdoria lost 0–2 to Atalanta and then beat Udinese comfortably 3–1. They are six points clear of Lecce in 18th place. Udinese is tied on points with Sampdoria so find themselves pretty safe too.
Torino and Genoa are in danger of getting sucked into the drop zone if they don’t start picking up points soon. Torino’s form has been awful, they have lost four of their last five matches. The one win they picked up was against 19th placed, Brescia. Genoa’s form is better as they have drawn twice and won once in their last five matches. The one win they had was a 2–0 win over SPAL.
Lecce had a shot in their arm with a surprise 2–1 win over Lazio, the kind of result that they are capable of producing after holding Juventus and Inter to a 1–1 draw at home and beating Napoli 3–2 away. They drew 0–0 against Cagliari to go one point away from safety. Brescia and SPAL looked doomed for me. The surprise 2–0 win for Brescia over Hellas Verona proved to be a rarity. They have also conceded six goals twice in their last five matches.
SPAL, on the other hand, had a heart-breaking 2–2 draw at home against Milan. They couldn’t build on that performance as they have lost three games in a row without scoring.
On another note, there has been a ridiculously high number of penalties for handball awarded in Italy. The referees have strictly adhered to the letter of the law where any contact of the ball with the hand whether voluntarily or not is a foul. Quite a number of times I have seen harsh awards of penalty as it would be tough for a player to get his arm out of the way from the trajectory of the ball or it would be unnatural for the player to jump or get a block in without his arm out. Only on rare occasions have the referee not penalised contact of the ball with the arm. It is what it is, though.
