Nothing has changed at the top of Serie A as the three main title contenders all won, with difficulty, their respective encounters. At the other end of the table, Lazio and Fiorentina won precious points in their bid to remain in Serie A.
As another round of Serie A football came to an end, Juventus and Milan continue their head to head race for the Scudetto while Inter remain a dangerous outsider despite being 11 points behind the leaders.
The Bianconeri played a good game till midway through the second half, then the players became complacent with the result and relaxed a bit too much. This resulted in Udinese pressing forward, scoring a goal and having another one disallowed for a very dubious offside position. Still, the ‘Old Lady’ produced a good performance when compared to their recent ones as they showed the fighting spirit they lacked in previous matches which resulted in Capello’s side taking the lead after just 40 second of play.
The Juve coach had the guts to change tactics to try and stir his squad up and the trident worked quite well for most of the time. Probably Capello will not re-use this formation too often as he still prefers the 4-4-2 setup, but now he knows that he has an extra weapon available for when things do not go the right way.
When things are not going your way and you still manage to win the games, then that’s a sign that you have a great team that can win silverware. This is the case of Milan as the Rossoneri had a terrible match against Reggina but still emerged as the winners on a pitch where Juve and Roma lost all points while Inter suffered to hold on to a 0-0 score. Ancelotti’s side had to play without Pirlo and when the midfielder is not playing, the Rossoneri always suffer. Prior to this game, Pirlo had only missed three games, resulting in two draws (away to Celtic, home to Livorno) and one defeat (away to Livorno).
Unfortunately for Milan, there is no substitute for the Italian international midfielder and he has probably become the most important and fundamental player of the team, even more than Shevchenko.
Inter don’t seem to have this problem as if there is a player out, someone else seems able to replace him adequately. On Saturday night Mancini surprisingly opted for Kily Gonzales instead of Stankovic and Adriano instead of Vieri. However the most important move was to play Mihajlovic in the middle of the defence and the former Lazio player was the man of the match thanks to a fantastic brace which helped the Nerazzurri distance themselves from Roma and climb to third place.
The Serbian defender is probably the best free kick taker in the world. The statistics don’t lie and his average of 65% goals from set pieces ratio is a good indication of his excellent qualities. When you consider that other free kick specialists, such as David Beckham, have an average of around 35% goals scored from set pieces, then Mihajolovic’s average really shines out.
Roma might be disappointed with the way the result matured as they now stand 7 points adrift of Inter. However the Giallorossi can still aim for a Champions League spot as Udinese lie 5 points away and with 14 matchdays still left to be played, anything is possible. The trident failed to spark things up on Saturday night, but that was mostly due to Inter’s good defensive organization rather than Roma’s demerits.
Bologna and Palermo remained unbeaten in recent weeks as they shared the spoils at the Dall’Ara stadium. After a rather difficult start to their season, both sides are more or less sure that they have avoided relegation this year and might even aim for something better if they can keep up the good work and form.
Lazio and Fiorentina finally broke their bad spell with very important home wins against relegation strugglers Atalanta and Parma. For the Biancocelesti the winning goal only arrived in the last minute of play after going behind at home against the last placed side of Serie A. The important thing was winning the three points, but if they continue playing this way, the future does not look bright as not all teams will be as ‘easy’ as the Bergamaschi.
On the other hand the Viola managed to put up a good performance apart from winning all three points, also thanks to two great goals by Chiellini and Miccoli. This was the first win, from five matches, for Zoff since he took over and he can now start having positive thoughts about the team after a week full of ‘bad thoughts’ as he declared.
Sampdoria proved that they are not yet a great team, but just a ‘good’ team. What separates a great team from a good team is the fact that the big guns can win all kind of matches and not just the difficult ones. The Blucerchiati can win against the best teams as they clearly showed against Juventus, but then they slip on seemingly harmless encounters, thus losing valuable points on the way which could have helped them enjoy an even higher placing in the standings.
Source: goal.com. The emphasis on Mihajlovic's free-kick abilities is to remind our Beckham loving friends that there are better free-kick takers out there.
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