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The chances to see the tricolour stitched on a different jersey than Juventus’ black and white stripes is very high, but it remains to be seen if the those stripes are red and black or blue and black.
Juventus’ grip on the Italian championship ends officially with Milan clinching the platonic title at the end of the first leg of the round robin.
After having played each team once the Rossoneri ended unexpectedly on top of the ladder, two points off cross-town rivals Inter and six ahead of Roma.
Juventus is seven points behind Milan and level with Atalanta. The champions still have one game in hand, the replay of their home match versus Napoli initially awarded to the Old Lady due to the visitors refusing to travel to Turin due to COVID cases.
A win will put Andrea Pirlo’s team in third place. That is definitely not enough for a coach that has been given the reins of the most prestigious team in Italy to win the Champions League on top of the domestic title, which is considered a given after a decade of success.
Ending the first leg ahead provides statistically good chances of success. In the past 23 years, 17 winter champions ended up with the Scudetto.
(Photo by Francesco Pecoraro/Getty Images)
But, despite Milan being on top, the second half of the tournament is shaped to favour their rivals Inter. While Stefano Pioli’s team is still competing in the Europa League, and Roma and Juventus are in the Champions League quarter-finals, Inter has been eliminated from the European competitions and can concentrate all their efforts on one goal. That may prove the winning factor for Antonio Conte’s men.
The usually heated battle on the bottom of the ladder is a fierce as ever, with ten teams in ten points. New arrivals Crotone sit at the bottom of the ladder with Parma, Cagliari and Torino at close distance.
The entire first half of the season has been played in empty stadiums due to the pandemic, depriving the extremely passionate Italian fans of their pastime and robbing the ones watching on TV around the world of the spectacle on the terraces.
Contrary to the popular belief that the crowds push the teams to perform better, statistically the empty stadiums haven’t favoured the visiting teams. The reason may be a more entrenched trait of Italian football mentality: visiting teams are more timid not because of the chants of the rival fans or the unfamiliar locker rooms, but because historically a draw away from home was seen as half a victory.
Visitors tend to play more defensively, exposing themselves in the process to the hosts’ game plan and ending up losing.
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