Things heating up in Serie A

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This article was published 28/02/2025 (545 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Scudetto won’t be won or lost this weekend. Even the potential four-point gap Inter Milan could open on Napoli wouldn’t seal it, not with 11 rounds still to play after Monday.

A first-place position heading into March is always a good place to be, and what makes the next few days of Italian calcio quite consequential, if not decisive, is not only the spectacle of its Inter-Napoli, one-versus-two encounter (today, 11 a.m., FuboTV), but also the spectre of the title race tightening into a genuine five-team affair.

Let’s start with those three other teams.

Lazio, in fifth spot, are presently 10 points back of the Nerazzurri, who actually beat them Tuesday in the Coppa Italia. Back at San Siro — scene of that 2-0 defeat — they’ll face AC Milan in Sunday’s late kick-off (1:45 p.m., FuboTV).

Now, Lazio do not do well at San Siro, which is putting it rather politely. They’ve won seven matches at the stadium in the last decade: that’s seven out of 27, zero from the last 12 and five consecutive losses away to Milan. The Rossoneri team they’ll be facing, however, has recorded only seven Serie A wins since October – two more than the number of captains they’ve had in that span.

If there was ever a time for Lazio to get a result in the Lombard capital, it’s surely now. A win would take them, at least temporarily, into fourth.

The jump would see them leapfrog Juventus, who host Hellas Verona on Monday (1:45 p.m., FuboTV) and are reeling after a shock elimination from the Coppa Italia by Empoli. La Gazetta dello Sport, never one to hold back when it comes to the Bianconeri, labelled the outcome “historic,” an overdramatic description outdone only by club manager Thiago Motta, who said his team had hit “rock bottom.”

Spoiler: they haven’t. Although defeat to 14th-place Hellas, who’ve scored exactly three goals in 2025, would take them a whole lot closer. A much more likely triumph could bring them, depending on Atalanta’s match at home to Venezia, within two points of third and as close to six from first.

Atalanta, then, are the final of the Scudetto contenders not squaring off in Campania this weekend. They’re also the team most likely to make things interesting as the campaign rounds its final turn.

Last year’s Europa League winners, La Dea have lost only once in Serie A since September (at home to Napoli) and, along with Inter, are joint goalscoring leaders in the Italian top flight this term. In Mateo Retegui they have the division’s leading marksman who, ahead of Saturday’s match against Venezia (8 a.m. FuboTV) has tallied nine times in his last six outings.

Earlier this week none other than legendary manager Arrigo Sacchi, who won back-to-back European Cups with Milan, insisted Atalanta could win this Scudetto, despite having never finished higher than third. Former Napoli defender Axel Tuanzebe, now with Ipswich Town, remarked Wednesday that Atalanta would give every Premier League side a run for their money.

Victory today in Bergamo would give them a share of first place, again with Inter, and they’ll no doubt be hoping for a draw at Stadio Diego Armando Maradona five hours after their own match concludes.

They might well get one.

Inter and Napoli have drawn 1-1 in their previous two meetings and four times in their last eight. Split decisions aside, Napoli have a terrible record against today’s opponents and would probably take a draw as well.

Mindful of that, and of his side’s run of four games without a win, Partenopei boss Antonio Conte is thought to be mulling both tactical and personnel changes ahead of the opening whistle.

The sale of 2022-23 Serie A Migliore in assoluto, or Best Overall Player, Kvicha Kvaratskhelia to PSG in January gave Brazilian winger David Neres a chance to claim the left-sided striking role in Napoli’s effective 4-3-3 formation. He did quite well until picking up a hamstring injury that will keep him out of the line-up until after the upcoming international break.

Conte has used a 3-5-2 setup in Neres’s absence, with Giacomo Raspadori partnering Romelu Lukaku in attack. It’s not gone particularly well, which is why the ex-Italy manager may revert to his 4-3-3 with the versatile Leonardo Spinazzola playing in the Kvaratskhelia-Neres position. He also has a headache in midfield as Andre-Frank Zambo Anguissa is expected to miss the next three weeks with a calf injury.

La Gazetta has speculated that Anguissa’s absence may compel Conte to deploy a 4-2-3-1 that’s rarely used in Italian football, with Billy Gilmour working alongside Stanislav Lobtka and Scott McTominay operating further up the pitch.

Whatever he decides, Conte has been dealing with adversity ever since he arrived at Napoli last summer. In big games like this, he tends to get the result he needs.

Inter, meanwhile, have rebounded from a mid-February Derby d’Italia defeat to Juventus by beating Genoa to go top of the table and sending Lazio out of the Coppa. Nevertheless, manager Simone Inzaghi has claimed he has a “real emergency” on his hands, citing the knock Matteo Darmian picked up on Tuesday as well as the absences of fellow wing-backs Nicola Zalewski and Carlos Augusto.

Like Motta, Inzaghi was greatly exaggerating his situation and will use Denzel Dumphries on the right-hand side in today’s encounter. He’ll also have captain Lautaro Martinez in the starting lineup after some early fears that the Argentina striker would miss out for violating one of the more fascinating statutes in world football.

In the angry fall-out from the Juventus loss, Martinez was alleged to have blasphemed. Yes, it’s exactly like it sounds.

Distressed lip-readers apparently caught the 27-year-old, in his post-match frustration, breaking the Third Commandment. Very Catholic Italy takes blasphemy quite seriously, and even the average person on the street or in the workplace can be faced with a €300 fine if overheard and charged by the Tribunale Federale Nazionale (TFN) for committing the offence.

On Friday the TFN obtained the audio of Martinez’s fateful words, and the player will now decide between accepting a fine and a one-match ban or appealing the judgment in front of the tribunal. In the meantime, however, he’ll be free to play in his club’s most important game of the season to date.

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This matter, and rumours Liverpool talisman Mohamed Salah could be signing for them in the summer, are the major talking points surrounding Inter at the moment, which is to say they’re in pretty good shape.

Napoli, you feel, are under the greater pressure, but even that could change in the next few days as the standings narrow slightly, stretch slightly or remain exactly as they are.

The Scudetto is not on the line this weekend. The next few days will merely provide intriguing football and set the stage for yet another compelling weekend in what has become Europe’s tightest, most exciting title race.

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