After a great last journey, Serie A teams have to come back to work and start making less mistakes. Juventus, the last Serie A winner, is in the third position and it’s a little far from Napoli, who is the actual leader, after a defeat at home against Lazio. Napoli continues to be the first after a rough win in Stadio Olímpico di Roma and the most important match of last week was the derby of Milano, which ended with a victory of Inter in the last minutes of the match thanks to a hat trick of Mauro Icardi.
Great matches on Saturday
But now it’s time to look forward to the next round which will be played this weekend. The first fixture of the 9th round will be played at Stadio Luigi Ferraris. Sampdoria will face Crotone when both teams need points because of different goals: Giampaolo squad is in Europa League positions and, if they don’t win, they can lose their positions; in the other side, Crotone is only one point ahead of relegation positions and they wouldn’t like to fall down there. It will be an interesting match.
The outstanding fixture of the week will be also played on saturday: the leader, Napoli, will receive the visit of the second team in the table, Inter, in San Paolo. If Spalletti squad makes a good strategy (with their brilliant forward Icardi) and get the three points, they will be able to be the next leaders of Serie A. However, if Napoli gets the three points, they will get a better advantage from Inter (five points) and that will be a great step for them to look for a possible Serie A trophy. But it’s too soon to say that.
What about Sunday?
On Sunday, another great derby will be played like last week. Now, it’s time for the derby of Verona: Chievo and Hellas Verona will face each other in Stadio Marc’Antonio Bentegodi, where both teams normally play as local team. Actually, Chievo is in the middle of the table and would like to be in Europa League positions, because they are only two points far from Sampdoria. Hellas Verona is one point far from relegation positions, so this match is similar to the fixture between Sampdoria and Crotone.
As well, in San Siro, Milan will receive the visit of Genoa. At the beginning of the competition, with the new squad, Milan was seen to be one of the best teams in Italy, but the truth is that they are in the middle of the classification and they are so far from the top positions. They have been defeated three times in a row in the Italian league competition and they need to get some points. In the other side, Genoa will fight not to fall to relegation positions, because they have the same points as SPAL and Sassuolo.
Another interesting battle will be the one which will be played at Stadio Olimpico di Torino. Torino and Roma will face each other in order to be in Europa League positions: Roma is 5th, with 15 points, and Torino is three places below with 13 points. If Mihajlovic squad get the three points, they will arrive to their objective, but they also depend of Sampdoria and Bologna. But if Roma wins, they won’t reach Lazio, but they will be near Champions League positions.
Points are very important
Plenty of matches whose teams have different goals will be played this weekend. Benevento will receive the visit of Fiorentina when they (Benevento) haven’t got any point since the competition started. It looks like Baroni squad is sentenced to dead. In another way, SPAL and Sassuolo will fight in order to get out of relegation positions: they both have five points and one point is very important for them. Besides, Atalanta and Bologna will play their match in Stadio Atleti Azzurri d’Italia.
Juventus, the one who got far from Napoli, will try to recover their situation by winning against Udinese. However, they know that their last visit to Stadio Communale Friuli ended with a draw, so they’ll have to work harder not to lose more points this weekend. Finally, Lazio need to get the three points in Stadio Olímpico because they want to stay in Champions League positions. They will play against Cagliari, who also need the points not to fall to relegation positions.