The ranking after 25 days seems clear to anticipate the final epilogue of this season: Juventus first, Napoli second and Inter, Milan, Rome, and Lazio to contend for third and fourth place, valid for a place in the next Champions League.
For seven years now, Juventus has been able to win uncontested the Serie A championship, some years Napoli has tried to put them in the wheel, a few years Roma, both without success. In recent years, Juventus has raised the pitch by going to buy champions from its rival teams (see the year when he buys Higuain from Napoli and Pjanic from Roma) just to try to aim for the most prestigious club trophy, the Champions League. They have touched this dream twice: in 2015 when they reached the final against Barcelona after defeating Real Madrid in the semi-final. The final one was an explosion of emotions: in the first half Barcelona immediately scored and dominated, so much so that it could not have been history; in the second half, after the unexpected draw of Morata for Juventus, the inertia of the game changed completely and for large tracts Juventus was to have control of the game and the game. Then, like a bolt from the blue, Suarez's goal came in the 68th minute to cut out his legs to the Italians, who however did not lose heart and tried to equalize until the end, where they were pocketed for the third time on the 95th from a counter-attack signed by Neymar.
In 2017, two years later, Juventus was once again in the final, this time against Cristiano Ronaldo's Real Madrid. In the first half, there was a game fought with the result that ends on 1 to 1 and occasions on one side and the other. In the second half, without understanding what happens to the Italian team that enters the field with a very different mentality and approach to the game, much softer and Real Madrid takes advantage of it by refining the other three goals for their twelfth Champions. A few days later it came out that in the interval, in the Juventus locker room, there was probably a quarrel between the players.
After this brief but due parenthesis on the Juventus Champions aspirations, we return to analyze the Italian league so far. Below the classification:
As you can see, between the first and second place, respectively Juventus and Napoli, there are 13 points of difference with only 13 games remaining before the end of the season. Between Napoli and Inter, second and third, there are 9 points of separation. On the other hand, Inter, Milan, and Roma are all three in a three-point handkerchief.
The ranking is clear to me: Juventus, once again, has shown in Italy, to be the strongest of all. What we all already knew a little, from fans to technicians to insiders, because they have the winning mentality, have a great team, a great company, a great brand, a higher revenue of opponents and every window of the transfer market, they try to reinforce, always. This year they bought one of the best talents from Inter, Cancelo; one of the best talents from Genoa, Perin; the best footballer in the world (along with Messi), Cristiano Ronaldo; and many others.
The difference with Napoli, my team, is that Juventus buys the best from the other teams while Napoli buys potential talents at low prices and then resell them at their peak. A winning strategy for the coffers of the president, but a loser for the fans who for years have been dreaming of the Scudetto. Inter and Milan for their part, have made a good transfer market, but they need time and adjustment to return to their maximum. Rome instead dismantled a team to buy young talents, and the results are proof of this: they range from great victories to sound defeats.
The beauty is that Italian football is rising a bit in Europe with Juventus able to get into two finals, Napoli fight equally with PSG and Liverpool, Inter play in a group against Totthenam and Barcelona and the seesaw Rome that last year arrives in the final with a stunning remuntada against Barcelona (and then lose against Liverpool). The bad thing is that the gap between Juventus and the other Italian teams seems to get longer every year and not shrink and one of the plausible reasons for this trend, suggested by some journalist, is that they have the ownership stadium?
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