Lessons Learned from Giornata 4

For those who spent Sat­ur­day and Sun­day away from the tele­vi­sion and inter­net, or were too busy watch­ing the Man­ches­ter Derby, here are some lessons we have learned (or in some cases relearned) from this past weekend’s Serie A action:

Gian­luigi Buf­fon is the key for a Juve scud­etto: Although he has some mileage between his numer­ous Serie A and inter­na­tional matches, and the Juven­tus attack is quite good, the 2–0 Juven­tus win over Livorno shows that Buf­fon still dom­i­nates matches for his team.  Nice goals by Iaquinta and Marchi­sio were over­shad­owed by some great saves by Buf­fon, ston­ing Lucarelli and Tavano on his way to 8 saves and a clean sheet.  No one ever doubts his abil­ity, and no one should doubt that Buf­fon can sin­gle­hand­edly carry his team atop the stand­ings if plays like he did against Livorno.

Roma will be near the top of the stand­ings in the near future: I thought Fioretina was a pos­si­ble dark horse con­tender for the scud­etto, and they still are, but I was impressed by a rein­vig­o­rated Roma side in this match.  I knew a team with Totti and de Rossi were not in dan­ger of rel­e­ga­tion, but their early results were less than…. inspir­ing.  With their next three matches against Palermo, Cata­nia, and Napoli, Roma could be look­ing to pass Milan when they face each other 18 October.

Bari will be a fac­tor in the race for the scud­etto: Hon­estly, Ata­lanta has a very good chance of being rel­e­gated, and a 4–1 win by Bari should not be too sur­pris­ing.  But the Gilletti began the sea­son with a draw at Inter, have six points on the sea­son, and cur­rently sit in 8^th in the stand­ings.  It is crazy to expect recently pro­moted Bari to com­pete for a title, but acqui­si­tions such as Donati (among oth­ers), new own­er­ship and a good keeper in Gillet will allow Bari to pick up three points against a top flight con­tender at least once  at some point this season.

Sam­p­do­ria can still beat teams it should: Lis­ten Sam­p­do­ria fans – this win over Sienna does not prove that you are a top-flight club.  Your next three matches (at Fiorentina, v. Inter and v. Parma) will do that.  But it is the sign of a qual­ity club that you can beat teams you should beat, and Sam­p­do­ria has done just that.

Francesco Guidolin had the best week­end of any man­ager: Guidolin’s cur­rent side (Parma) handed his for­mer side (Palermo) a 1–0 defeat on Sun­day in a closely fought con­test.  Guidolin was pre­vi­ously the man­ager of Palermo three times, includ­ing dur­ing the infa­mous Sicil­ian derby riot of Feb­ru­ary 2007.

Diego is good, Cagliari is not:

Tagged as: Bari, Buffon, Catania, Diego, Francesco Guidolin, Inter, Juventus, Livorno, milan, Napoli, Palermo, Parma, Roma, Sampdoria, scudetto