HALFWAY through the Serie A season, it is tempting to imagine that the top three spots are already settled. Juventus hold a nine-point advantage over their closest challengers, Napoli, who themselves sit five ahead of Inter. The Nerazzurri, in turn, are seven up on fourth-placed Lazio.
We do not need to dig very far back through the history books for a reminder that form can change. Inter were top of the table on 15 December 2017, and had just earned a draw away to Juventus. They failed to win any of their next seven games, endured a further wobble in the spring and wound up needing a come-from-behind win to scrape into fourth on the final day of the season.
January is too soon to take anything for granted. But even if we were to presume that the top three will all stay the course, that would still leave at least one Champions League berth up for grabs. The race for fourth place is shaping up as one of the most wide-open contests in years.
Immediately behind Lazio (32 points) come Milan (31) and Roma (30). These are clubs built to challenge for a place in Europe’s top club competition. They own the sixth-, second- and fourth-largest wage budgets in Serie A, respectively (Juventus, Napoli and Inter are first, fifth and third).
Behind them, though, comes a chasing pack of less obvious candidates. Sampdoria, Atalanta, Torino and Fiorentina all sit within six points of Lazio. The gap between fourth place and 10th, in other words, is smaller than that from fourth to third.
Are there genuine contenders to be found in this latter group? Atalanta look the best equipped to challenge Serie A’s wealthy elite. They are the most prolific team in the division thus far and consistently produce their best performances in the biggest games. They have beaten Lazio and thrashed Inter 4-1 this season, as well as drawing with Juventus, Milan and Roma.
Their manager, Gian Piero Gasperini, is one of Italy’s sharpest tacticians: a man who José Mourinho described during his time at Inter as “the manager who gave me the greatest difficulty”. He would eventually become manager of the Nerazzurri himself, only to be fired after five games. His results were poor, yet the club had failed comprehensively to support his priorities in the transfer market at a time when the squad was in desperate need of an overhaul.
SEVEN goals between Sassuolo & Atalanta alone today pic.twitter.com/S1ac86F41a
— Italian Football TV (@IFTVofficial) December 29, 2018
That he has never had another chance with a comparably big club is a travesty. Yet he has found a setting in Atalanta that suits him. Even as the likes of Franck Kessie, Andrea Conti, Mattia Caldara and Roberto Gagliardini have moved on over the past two years, Gasperini has kept the Bergamese club punching above its weight.
He steered Atalanta to fourth two seasons ago, though Italy only had three Champions League spots at the time. They slipped to seventh last year, but even that small backwards step must be viewed in the context of a campaign when they also reached the Coppa Italia semi-final and the knock-out round of the Europa League.
Their legs should be fresher this time around, having exited the latter competition before the group stage. If Duvan Zapata can maintain the sort of form that saw him score nine goals in the month of December, and Josip Ilicic can stay healthy, they will be capable of standing toe to toe with anybody. Only Leo Messi and Sergio Aguero scored as many hat-tricks as the Slovenian in 2018.
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Quagliarella scored his 9th goal in 9 #SerieA matches against Juventus on Saturday, the first player to do this since David Trezeguet in December 2005.
His first goal of the season was astounding pic.twitter.com/fzBzOLLOKD
— Eleven Sports (@ElevenSports_UK) January 1, 2019
Sampdoria have played well this season, too, but are more reliant on the singular figure of Fabio Quagliarella, who ended the year on a career-best run of nine consecutive games with a goal (or two). Torino are hard to beat under Walter Mazzarri but do not get enough from Andrea Belotti and Simone Zaza up front to believe they are ready for a Champions League run.
Fiorentina have a young and compelling team but they too lack a cutting edge up front. Their move to sign Luis Muriel from Sevilla feels like an odd choice. The Colombian is talented and versatile, but the Viola need goals above all. He has reached double figures twice in seven top-flight European seasons.
And so we return to the front-runners. Lazio have been a disappointment this season: a shadow of the explosive counter-attacking team that scored 89 times in 2017-18. Simone Inzaghi stands accused of predictable tactics, but key players have also let him down.
The return to form of Sergej Milinkovic-Savic over the past month, however, is a major cause for encouragement. A popular pick for Serie A’s player of the season last time out, he had struggled through the autumn but something seemed to click in December as he produced goals and man-of-the-match performances against Cagliari and Torino.
Milinkovic-Savic scores a screamer against Torino pic.twitter.com/dc5QzQPMla
— Isak Möller (@Isak_Moller) December 29, 2018
For Lazio to already occupy fourth without seeing the best of him could be read as a cause for encouragement. If Milinkovic-Savic is able to get back to last season’s levels, this team’s potential will increase dramatically.
Milan, likewise, stand to gain if Gonzalo Higuaín can produce something closer to his usual strike rate. The Argentinian had gone nine games without a goal before he hit the winner against SPAL in his team’s final fixture of 2018.
He should not carry the can for all his club’s struggles. Milan have endured a brutal string of injuries in midfield, and the service to the forwards has been patchy. An optimist might point out that, despite this, the club still picked up the joint-third most points of any team in Serie A over the past calendar year. Yet they had collectively failed to score in four straight games – including one against Frosinone – before the win over SPAL.
Roma, on paper, look the best-equipped of all the teams targeting fourth. Their squad is rich with young, technically gifted, midfielders and wingers, thanks to Monchi’s summer overhaul. The challenge for Eusebio Di Franceso has been to find a way to combine them in a balanced way: no small thing following the departures of Radja Nainggolan and Kevin Strootman.
There were signs, late in the year, that he was getting closer. Roma won three of their final four games in 2019, their only slip coming away to Juventus. They have stayed competitive through a lengthy injury absence for Edin Dzeko, getting goals from 15 different players already this season.
Their problem has been keeping them out at the other end. Roma have conceded 24 times already: only four fewer than they did in the previous full Serie A campaign.
23 – Ciro Immobile scored 23 goals in Serie A in 2018, more than any other player in the period in the competition. Sniper.#SerieA #2018 pic.twitter.com/mJWVeoDwu5
— OptaPaolo (@OptaPaolo) December 30, 2018
Tough questions still hang over these teams. Are Lazio overreliant on Ciro Immobile? Will Patrick Schick ever produce consistently enough as Roma’s alternative to Dzeko up front? What happens to Milan’s rebuilding plan if they do fall short again, after posting losses of more than €123m last year, with the threat of a European ban hanging over if they cannot break even by 2021?
A race for fourth place inevitably lacks the prestige of one for the Scudetto. The stakes, though, might be even higher for the teams involved.
