The Top 5 Stories from Serie A Round 4: A 41-Goal Parade!

Italian Football, Serie A, Serie A 2020-2021, Top 5

Last weekend, Serie A returned with a bang! Saturday night featured an internationally awaited Milan derby, as well as a top level encounter between Napoli and Atalanta, while Juventus found some unexpected trouble in their southern trip to Crotone. The action continued for the following two days, with GOALS being the major theme for the exciting weekend. So here are the top 5 stories from Serie A round 4:

Milan Derby Makes Its Comeback to The International Scene

During the last decade, the Derby della Madonnina unfortunately degraded from its past status as one of the most awaited fixtures in world football every season, to a more internal affair between two sides who were struggling to break into the Champions League spots.

Although the giants are yet to fully recover, Antonio Conte’s Inter has been on the right track since last season and already possess arguably the best squad in Serie A. On the other hand, Milan have surprisingly found themselves on top of the league table, and further cemented their position with a derby victory over their city rivals.

The final result aside, the anticipation for this particular derby was different from its predecessors of the latest seasons, as despite the absence of the big San Siro crowds, the eyes of international football fans worldwide were fixed on a Milan derby that finally felt as a truly anticipated fixture between two Top sides. 

Juventus Lack Their Previous Seasons Depth 

Once upon a time, during Massimiliano Allegri’s glorious era, Juventus were said to possess another potential starting XI on their bench that could become a Scudetto contender on its own. While this theory was largely inflated, it speaks volumes of the type of depth that the Bianconeri owned between their ranks during the last years.

Fast forward to this season, an almost unrecognizable Juventus starting XI took the field against Crotone, including a left flank which contained promoted U-23 squad players Manolo Portanova and Gianluca Frabotta.

Although the absence of star players Cristiano Ronaldo and Paulo Dybala would have left any club short in attack, the lack of viable first team options proves that Andrea Pirlo’s side will endure a tough and exhausting season, and their surprising draw against Crotone must have definitely opened the eyes of rest of the Serie A generals.

Napoli Thriump Over Atalanta Showcases Open Title Race

As mentioned above, The Milan cousins are on the rise, and Juventus could be finally losing some grip this season. And Whilst we highlighted Atalanta’s incredible rise to Scudetto contenders in our round 3 recap, the Bergamaschi‘s uncharacteristic 4-1 loss at Napoli shouldn’t rule them out at all.

If anything, this big result proves that this season will truly be a special one in terms of the numerous top sides who are all able to take points from one another, and thus makes this race for the Serie A crown more open than ever.

So instead of counting Atalanta out,  maybe we should add yet another team to the Scudetto shortlist, as Gennaro Gattuso’s Napoli look more entertaining and more complete than anytime before.

FIGC Lesson Served Its Purpose As All Teams Show Up

During round 3, some major controversy loomed over Serie A when Napoli didn’t travel to Turin for their encounter against Juventus, due to two of their players testing positive for COVID-19. And after several days of debating, the southerners were handed a tough sentence by the Italian federation Judge, with a league point deducted from their total, and the Juventus being rewarded with a 3-0 win. 

The Napoli fans were angered with a decision they labeled as harsh and unfair, while the Juventus faithful considered it an untasty but fair call. But eventually the lesson was served to every Serie A side, as despite the surface of several positive cases at a number of Italian clubs, including Juventus, Inter, Torino, and Parma, all 20 teams showed up to the pitch with none even threatening to miss a match, with Napoli ending up being the sacrificial lamb for the FIGC’s protocol implementing.

Unleash the Goals!

In one the most crazy weekends in long memory, Serie A sides have all come together to reject all ancient stereotypes about the Italian football lacking goals and excitement, as they ended up producing a whopping 41 goals in 10 matches!

While Atalanta are usually responsible for raising the goal average, they only managed to score a sole goal this weekend, yet their opponents Napoli rained the goals on them. Two 7-goal thrillers were witnessed in Round 4, as Roma ended up beating a resilient Benevento 5-2, and Sassuolo produced an epic comeback in their 4-3 victory over Bologna.

Elsewhere, Udinese won another exciting contest against Parma 3-2 thanks to a last minute goal, while Spezia earned a 2-2 draw against Fiorentina. Thus, as we mentioned in our Top 10 reasons to follow Serie A, Italian football have come a long way from being an exclusively tactical football, sometimes Labeled as “boring,” as a host of young Italian managers have decided to bring the goals and the excitement to the loyal calcio fans.

Related posts:

  1. Top 5 Stories of Serie A Round 8: Ronaldo, Lukaku and Ibra Braces
  2. Top 5 Stories of Serie A Round 9: A Juventus – Milan Contrast
  3. The Top 5 Stories of Serie A Round 5: Goals and Goals Again!
  4. Top 5 Stories of Serie A Round 10: A Juventus Renaissance?