Real Football Man All of the Football, All of the time
Another guest article now and Filippo Festuccia returns with an extensive review of all the action of Week 37 of Serie A. You can follow Filippo on Twitter here @FilippoFest. Over to you Filippo
Juventus has won the title, Inter and Fiorentina are certain of their Europa League placements (with the latter hoping to grab a group stage spot if Milan loses the Coppa Italia final), Frosinone and Verona have been relegated. This is what we know about Serie A with only one game to go: every other prize is up for grabs.
Roma and Napoli keep fighting for second place. They both won against two largely unmotivated teams, with Roma breezing past Chievo and Napoli wrestling a win out of a Torino team full of players eyeing a place in the Euro 2016 squads. Of course, with only one game left Napoli’s 2 point advantage will be hard to overturn, as the Higuain-led partenopei face Frosinone. Roma, meanwhile, will have to play Milan, a team so desperate for a win it’s not even funny. It looks like it will be Napoli joining Juventus in the Champions League group stage, with Roma having to go through a costly August playoff (in a Summer full of international competitions), but never say never.
Milan needs a win against Roma, as we were saying, because their defeat of Bologna still wasn’t enough to bring them back up in 6th place, currently held by Sassuolo. The black-and-green fairytale team won against Frosinone, but will have to face Inter next week. The good thing for them is, even a loss could be enough if Milan fails to beat Roma. Of course, their Europa League playoff spot will not be secured until after the aforementioned Coppa Italia final, where Milan will clash against Juventus in a desperate attempt to rescue their season at the last breath.
With Frosinone and Verona relegated, and Udinese safe at last, only two teams are left battling to stay in Serie A. Carpi lost to Lazio in their most infuriating game, wasting not one but two penalties, while Palermo managed to draw Fiorentina, gaining a one point lead that could mean everything. They will play Verona at home – a loss would be absolutely shocking – and Carpi will have to defeat Udinese to keep hoping.
As with every season’s end, we saw some farewells, with legendary striker Luca Toni retiring in front of his home crowd in Verona and Atalanta’s iconic captain Gianpaolo Bellini doing the same in Bergamo. They both scored a penalty, but there was little room for joy.
Thanks Filippo, make sure to keep an eye out for his review for Week 38 next week which will be the season finale
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