Serie A tells us that it is better to have a center forward than not to have one

The results of the 10th day of Serie A

Empoli-Monza 1-0 (11th Haas)
Turin-Juventus 0-1 (74th Vlahovic)
Atalanta-Sassuolo 2-1 (41st Kyriakopoulos, 45th Pasalic, 46th Lookman)

Inter 2-0 Salernitana (14th Martinez, 58th Barella)
Lazio 0-0 Udinese
Spezia-Cremonese 2-2 (2nd Dessers, 19th Nzola, 22nd Holm, 52nd Pickel)
Napoli-Bologna 3-2 (41st Zirkzee, 45th Juan Jesus, 49th Lozano, 51st Barrow, 69th Osimhen)
Verona 1-2 Milan (9th Veloso (aut), 19th Gunter, 81st Tonali)

Sampdoria-Rome 0-1 (9th Pellegrini)
Lecce 1-1 Fiorentina (43 ° Ceesay, 48 ° Kouame)

The Serie A ranking after the 10th matchday

Naples 26, Atalanta 24, Milan 23, Rome 22, Udinese 21, Lazio 21, Inter 18, Juve 16, Sassuolo 12, Turin 11, Empoli 11, Salernitana 10, Monza 10, Fiorentina 10, Spezia 9, Lecce 8, Bologna 7 , Hellas Verona 5, Cremonese 4, Sampdoria 3.

Because attending Spezia-Cremonese is better than the Super League between presumed interchangeable big players

The intolerance of the media and millennials for small matches that are only good for betting, Sunday inconveniences (almost always at 3 pm) on the road to the big match, is at least misplaced. For one thing, Spezia-Cremonese was among the best matches of the year: game openly on both sides, two fixed points in the area, 2-2 but without glaring defenses, chances of victory unchanged up to beyond the 90th. The salt of football: better a match like this, albeit without a noble pedigree, or the eternal coming and going between interchangeable big players (you choose which ones), asphyxiated, tactical and even unexpectedly a little embarrassing in the fundamentals? In the Champions League, and in the upper echelons of Serie A, you often chew free-kick patterns and then find yourself wrapped up, balls thrown for little courage, players burned after a mistake like Asllani at the Camp Nou, risky defensive retreats instead of attacking the depth. Or, never be it, skip the man. God save Spezia and Cremonese: the provincial teams for years – Lecce now, Monza in progress, Empoli right from the start – they did not have that identity in Serie A, a championship now at the level of the Bundesliga (if not lower) but equally enjoyable the closer you get to “small is beautiful”. Superalloy? Who cares. There won’t be anyway, great calmand therefore it is better to put your heart in peace and go back to the ball.

Because La Palice also knew that it is better to have a center forward instead of not having one

The only doubt that the grenade fans had before the last home derby concerned the minute in which Juve would take the lead, to keep it and then win shortly. Too hot, as in recent years, to score a goal close to the 90th and even beyond: Vlahović’s goal in the 74th left some vain hope at the Maratona curve (Jurić suffered a goal five times in the last 15 minutes of the race), but of the the rest was all already written. Great calm, because even if the underdog plays better, the goal in the other door arrives: we like the false nines, the pocket shots, the cuts of the full backs – now also Bocchetti along the road of Gasperini, who in turn also knows how to change – but in the end when the team with the center forward meets the one without, it is the first to score and win. Especially if the other, due to health contingencies, has to add three half-points in order not to make one: Toro surrounds the area, Juve, as usual, disconnects their departments in spaces that are too large, but Juve plays “like Toro”, if the DNA still means something. Just as it is self-evident that well-established formations, unchanged for some time like Lazio and Udinese, impact 0-0 with the air of the (new) greats: in particular the Friulians struggle to collect goals, especially if – see above – the opposing center-forward gets hurt. Who would have thought that it pays to have a bomber in the squad or to promote game cohesion through mutual acquaintance, assiduous over time? Yet things are taken for granted, like the habit of going to the flag for those who are winning in injury time.

Because, among the variables of the championship, injuries can decide the standings and world championships

How much, by the way, will Lazio be worth without a building? What was the weight of Inter without Lukaku and Brozović too? And how many points would it have brought to Milan to have Maignan? Not to mention the fresh importance of Calabria, or Wijnaldum’s “loss of profit” for Rome. These questions every week draw a different picture of the future as regards the balance of the championship: we were ready to argue that Sassuolo with Berardi and Traoré is all another thing, to say it with Nanni Moretti’s Trotskyist pastry chef, but a new muscular problem has again knocked out the Calabrian striker, just long enough to shake the crossbar with a left of his team. The drama, in a game overflowing with young talent. Moreover, Atalanta is increasingly to be taken seriously the more it hides with the lights off: but with the initial whistle of Qatar-Ecuador, in a month, another season will begin. Another Golden Ball after Benzema, another transfer market with unprecedented gems in the window, another series of more or less long, more or less decisive injuries. In Argentina they are already trembling, risking not to have Dybala and the intermittent Di María to hunt for a title that has been missing for 36 years; France, still favorites, will have to reinstate their midfield regardless of Kanté. Of course, there have always been gambling accidents: but apparently never as now – despite the long benches – they make a difference, favoring those who have suffered less in the long run. Or who will have invested, with great calm and in good time, in their youth sector.

Because Raspadori is the new Paolo Rossi, but also another Mertens and not yet himself

On the Sunday in which strangely he did not score, but after a dazzling Napoli-Ajax, even with the thrill of seeing a black jacket on the referee, it is noteworthy that for few players, in recent years, so many comparisons have been sought as for Giacomo Raspadori (literally, better “Jim” than “Jack”, would be the nickname for John, Giovanni). A sign that the boy does not leave indifferent, since his first appearances in Serie A – he was in the year of the lockdown, the games behind closed doors – when he won the Lazio Olimpico with the Sassuolo shirt. “Raspa” like Paolo Rossi, taken for granted for his short-term nose for goal; like Mertens, who took his place in Naples, and who can play both on the front line and starting from behind. But no, it’s the new Tevez, says some irreverent, retorted by the supporters of the Aguero thesis: the crestomacy lacks someone – not Spalletti – who sees him better as a winger. What will become of it, no one can tell now (great calm): but the fact is that the magnificent and progressive fates of the 22-year-old from Bologna seem to have no boundaries. All to the advantage of those who pay him: today Napoli, tomorrow maybe a top European team. And, hopefully, of Mancini’s national team, which has already opened a preliminary credit for him, giving him the title of European champion.

Because the stew championship dilutes the pathos, generates anxiety and perhaps produces fewer ratings

Not to go from boomer (we are used to it, and it is also apt) with the nostalgia of All Football on Sundays at 15, but the matches every hour for three consecutive days are a bit marking the pace of public interest. Excluding those who just follow their favorite team, and those who look at them more or less all for too much free time and addiction to fantasy football, squadernate the entire calendar – there are eight or nine games that can be followed without concomitants – in the long run it dilutes the pathos, as the var suspends and interrupts the intercourse with the network. And, there will be studies in this regard, it also generates a certain anxiety among those who are in the running for some goal, leaving only the farce of the initial synchronized whistles to the last few days. Yes, the spectators are tired, and there great calm leads to yawns with frozen eyes in front of a screen: it will certainly not be the fault of the “pezzotti” or the pirate sites if the listening data of the individual matches via Dazn or Sky are passed over in silence in the analysis of the next day. It would be interesting to know them, even if only as a symptom of a community’s passion for its main sport: with the utopian risk that already at the next world championships – if, one-off, Italy gets there – the recruiter will struggle to find twenty-five bold young people of the first or second generation, and also a dozen seats occupied in the sofas of the country.