Inter star Federico Dimarco is the best left-back in Europe, Massimiliano Allegri is making Juventus play in the worst way and Napoli is a team without soul… 10 THINGS WE LEARNED from Serie A this weekend

What have we learned this week about Serie A? 

What remained in the mind and heart of the second round of matches of the Italian championship? 

Here’s what happened in 30 round of Serie A 2023/2024

1 – DIMARCO IS THE BEST LEFT BACK IN EUROPE

Federico Dimarco is the best Italian left back since Gianluca Zambrotta. Raised in Inter’s youth sector, he played with Ascoli, Empoli, Sion, Parma and Verona, before returning definitively to Inter in 2021, becoming in the space of three years an irreplaceable point of reference for both Nerazzurri team and the Italian national team in which he will be a protagonist during the summer European Championship. 

The victory against Empoli demonstrates how Federico Dimarco has become an absolute protagonist of Inter, a team no longer dependent only on the competitive fury of Marcus Thuram and Lautaro Martinez, the two attackers who scored 70% of the team’s goals in this season season. 

Dimarco kicks first as if he were an attacker, hits with strength and precision and is set to become an icon of the team. He is probably the most technical defender in Serie A and Empoli has never managed to stem his inexhaustible run. 

Simone Inzaghi has built a perfect machine, apparently without structural defects, in which the twenty-six-year-old box-to-box winger, strongly wanted at Inter by CEO Beppe Marotta, plays a fundamental role, covering the role of fifth defender and third attacker. In 3-5-2 Dimarco is one of the few European players capable of transforming Simone Inzaghi’s game plan depending on his position on the pitch: from 5-3-2 to 3-4-3 in the attacking phase in 40 meters which they make the Italian full-back difficult to control.

2 – JUVENTUS DOES NOT PLAY FOOTBALL

One win, three draws and four defeats in 60 days. This is the spoils of Massimiliano Allegri who continues to be presumptuous in the press room and terrible in his role as coach at the helm of Juventus. “Old Lady” has reached such an embarrassing level of ugliness that it cannot be judged. 

Bianconeri team no longer follows the coach who lives in a bubble of monotonous impotence, making every move wrong. They failed in all crucial tactical decisions against Lazio, with Mattia De Sciglio replaced out of desperation after 45 minutes and Fabio Miretti non-existent in midfield. 

The players have their faults but Massimiliano Allegri is making Juventus play in the worst way and with the worst results ever achieved in Serie A by the club in its more than one hundred year history. 

Massimiliano Allegri’s Juventus slumped to a 1-0 defeat at Lazio on Saturday

The bench number 500 collected by Allegri was not honoured and the team lived a continuous nightmare proving that they did not know what to do. 

Manuel Locatelli plays with shaking legs, players in great form with their respective national teams when they play against Juventus go through matches in psycho-physical agony: there is something wrong in locker room and it doesn’t take a genius to understand that this is the case. necessary to give a shock. 7 points in 9 games are a merciless snapshot of the progress of a team, the black and white one, which needs a shake-up and not a coach who continues to repeat to all his players the word “let’s stay calm, calm down!”. 

The team is averaging one point away from relegation to Serie B and continues to have no ideas that could change course of events.

3 – NAPOLI, A TEAM WITHOUT SOUL

Has anyone seen Napoli on the pitch? The 0-3 suffered by Napoli at home against Atalanta is the demonstration of a serious character deficit of a team that has erased in 7 months the good things done in the last 3 years. 

Winning the Scudetto for the second time in a row would have been difficult but the level of quality this season has been largely insufficient. 45 points in 30 games, 44 goals scored and 36 goals conceded, too many for a team that can definitively say goodbye to fourth place in Serie A standings. The true technical value of the team is probably this but what makes the fans suffer is the absolute lack of personality of the team coached by Francesco Calzona. 

Weak, defeatist and nervous, Neapolitan team seemed to wait helplessly for the final whistle. 8/11 of this team would not play as starters in any top Italian club and this should give pause to President De Laurentiis who let Eljif Elmas leave and replaced him with players who were not up to par such as Leander Dedoncker and Hamed Junior Traorè. In Naples they disappointed everyone, especially those who should have proved something after the many millions spent in the winter transfer market. 

Napoli’s season went from bad to worse with the 3-0 home defeat by Atalanta

Cyril Ngonge is a player with mixed performances and against Giampiero Gasperini’s team he was crushed by the Atalanta defence. Giovanni Di Lorenzo lost all the one-to-one duels and bears some blame for the third goal scored by Teun Koopmeiners.

4 – LEAO IS A DELIGHT FOR THE EYES

Rafael Leao is a gazelle impossible to stop. In the big match against Fiorentina he overwhelmed the entire defense of the team coached by Vincenzo Italiano, cutting the field like a blade does with a piece of butter. 

Milan’s 2-1 is a demonstration of psychological, technical and muscular strength by the Portuguese player who, with a body movement while running, hypnotizes Fiorentina goalkeeper and makes Rossoneri fans explode with joy. The gallop for the fifth goal of the season is aesthetically perfect, it could be set to music by Maestro Ennio Morricone in his famous ditties that accompanied Hollywood cinematography. 

When the ball reaches his feet, the Fiorentina defenders begin to move back to try to limit the damage and more often than not they are forced to commit a foul because Leao is unstoppable in every area of ​​the pitch. He runs vertically and obliquely and over the years he has learned how to protect the ball: give him the ball and how to deposit it in the bank and this new leadership has increased his centrality in the team’s play. 

When Leao is in the game he leaves no way out for his opponents, he runs laughing like the best Ronaldinho admired in his time at Barcelona, ​​he always dribbles past the opposing full-back, creates assists for Giroud and always raises his head as he runs towards the goal. It is a pleasure for the eyes and the hearts of Rossoneri fans who have elected him as the new icon of AC Milan team. He is of a level clearly superior to that of all the wingers in Serie A and has an elastic physique that makes him light as if he were flying on the grass.

Rafael Leao has delighted the Milan fans with his dribbling and assists this season

5 – BOLOGNA DESERVES A PLACE IN CHAMPIONS LEAGUE

Bologna deserves a place in Champions League. The 3-0 victory against Salernitana is a direct message to Juventus, today only 2 points away, which serves to consolidate fourth place in the Serie A standings. Salernitana, last in the standings, are not a difficult opponent but the way Bologna attacked the match shows how much the team has matured in recent months. 

Managing such a delicate match to ensure a greater chance of participating in the next Champions League was not easy but Bologna managed to gain 3 points, increasing the group’s self-esteem. Victory number 7 in the last 8 games is a perfect snapshot of the qualities of Thiago Motta’s team who managed to win even without making 100% use of Joshua Zirkzee, who came on as a substitute in the 64th minute and produced an excellent performance. 

The players on the pitch change but not the winning mentality of this team which deserved to be in full swing to be able to write an important page in the club’s history. Thiago Motta has built a perfect team that defends and attacks with the same aggressiveness and that has found in the 4-1-4-1 a revolutionary tactical scheme in the European system. The team’s football is enjoyable, cheerful and without too many tactical obsessions: it attacks with 6 men and defends with 5 men without ever losing the objective of scoring one more goal than the opponent as a point of reference.

6 – TUDOR DELETE SARRI

At Lazio he managed to change his skin in a few days, he abandoned the tracksuit and sat on the bench in a jacket, tie and sneakers. Igor Tudor’s debut was emblematic because he demonstrated how having clear ideas is always a notable starting point. 

New Lazioboss Igor Tudor was rewarded for making tough decisions against Juventus

His first match at the helm of Lazio is certainly positive because it cuts with the past and with Maurizio Sarri’s ideas, changes tactical module, also changes players and makes difficult choices, leaving Matteo Guendouzi on the bench, making the players who don’t start from the first minute they were considered useful in previous technical management such as Daichi Kamada, Nicolo’ Casale and Valentin “Taty” Castellanos. He wins at the last second but shows some signs of rebirth, the team was tired of Sarri and the desire to fight shows how sometimes changing coaches is an inevitable process to improve the overall performance. 

Despite the days of work with Biancoleste team, Tudor has already given shape and ideas to a Lazio in his image and likeness: aggressive and pressing play from the 1st minute to the last minute and a lot of running without the ball to offer quick game solutions. The road is still very long and the disastrous consecutive series of results obtained by Maurizio Sarri before his resignation have put Lazio’s standings in crisis and they will now have to try to get as many points as possible with Iron Sergeant Tudor on the bench.

7 – CARNESECCHI BETTER THAN DONNARUMMA

At the moment the best Italian goalkeeper in Serie A is Marco Carnesecchi. The young Italian number 1 won the tight duel with Victor Osimhen, saving 4 dangerous shots from the Napoli striker, performing a true miracle when he slapped, after a feline leap, “tap in” of Nigerian star. In the first match of the season against Napoli Carnesecchi was an immature goalkeeper looking for confidence but 4 months later he is a serious, concrete and very reliable number 1. He looks like a robot: he screams, jumps, yells and punches the grass after every save. 

In Bergamo city he became a man after the year of apprenticeship in Serie A with Cremonese. The shoulder injury is now a distant memory and the period of settling in in Bergamo served to improve some fundamental qualities, such as high outputs and low outputs, which during the period spent at Cremonese seemed to be a limit to his growth. If his physique does not make him fragile, Carnesecchi will be destined to dominate the international scene. 

The comparison with Gianluigi Donnarumma today would not see him succumb and stylistically perfect matches like those against Napoli are the basis of his professional growth and the consolidation of his character. Unlike PSG goalkeeper, from whom he is separated by only 12 months of age, Carnesecchi seems to have greater concentration for the entire 90 minutes, without ever exceeding his personalism in the setting phase.

8 – GUDMUNDSSON IS READY FOR A TOP CLUB

The Icelandic boy risks becoming the real protagonist of the Serie A summer transfer market. Albert Gudmundsson is a top player who for too many years has been content to play football without having to prove at all costs that he is the only player from Northern Europe to have the mentality of a South American star. 

Against Frosinone he passed the most important step, the final exam that transforms good players into top players in the most difficult matches, becoming the protagonist of the match despite not being in good physical condition. 

Albert Gudmundsson scored his 11th goal of the season for Genoa in draw with Frosinone

From the point of view of interpreting the match, Genoa was certainly not the best but having a player like Gudmundsson in the team means being able to make the most of every little opportunity to score. His usual generosity has failed but his way of playing always allows you to change the pace of the match: even when he isn’t present 100% in the match he puts all of Frosinone on alert but very little can be seen in the last sixteen meters. 

The star of the Icelandic national team gets the penalty that unlocks the match and scores it with the coolness of a cold-blooded animal, reaching 11 goals in Serie A. He was inconsistent for long moments of the match, perhaps held back by tiredness due to the commitments with the national teams, but he still managed to hit the precise left-footed shot that pierced Frosinone goalkeeper, helping Genoa to gain a precious point in the standings.

9 – JURIC AS ‘GRUMPY’ OF THE SEVEN DWAEVES

He may have many character flaws that have led him to often argue with journalists and to be in conflict with the sporting director of the Italian club but Ivan Juric is an excellent coach who is trying to bring Torino back to Europe. 

At times Juric seems like “Grumpy”, one of the always angry 7 dwarfs who accompanies Snow-White in a famous Walt Disney film, yet managing to achieve good results despite his bad temper. 

The 1-0 victory against Monza is a watershed moment of the season and can be considered one of the best moments for Torino. Monza was often dangerous with Milan Djuric and Andrea Colpani, but never managed to hit the goal defended by Sergej Milinkovic-Savic, confirming the great tactical work carried out by the Croatian coach. Juric, unlike other coaches, has the ability to brilliantly read the moments of the match. His team won the midfield duel against Monza by a landslide, always having control of the ball. 

The changes chosen by Croatian coach had a good impact on the match and the entry of Toni Sanabria gave team 3 golden points. 8 points in 4 games: this is the balance of Torino as they face this end of the season, reaping with a bit of luck the results of the great work done in the first part of Sere A. In a championship full of ups and downs, Torino with a good season finale could achieve president Urbano Cairo’s main goal.

Juventus could face competition from Premier League for Atalanta’s Teun Koopmeiner

10 – KOOPMEINERS PRIMED FOR PREMIER LEAGUE

11 goals in Serie A represent his best season in his career. He only plays for half an hour at short trot due to some physical problems but on the pitch his light makes all the Napoli midfielders frown. He is a giant like Gulliver in little Lilliput, he is a professor who when he gets on the chair seems to transform into a giant, ridiculing all his opponents. 

Koopmeiners seems to have a magnet between his feet that attracts the ball and puts all the other players in difficulty. He hits Napoli with a humiliating 0-3 with a billiard shot, dry and precise, dramatically increasing his economic value which grows game after game. According to Opta data the Dutch boy who grew up in Azerbaijan is the second midfielder with the most goals in the top five European leagues, behind the icon of modern football Jude Bellingham, in the lead with 16 goals. He is not Clarence Seedorf or even Ruud Gullut but he has all the fundamental characteristics to be a modern midfielder indispensable for every top club.

Juventus CEO Cristiano Giuntoli is willing to do the impossible to bring him to Torino but his future could also be in the Premier League. Despite the club’s official denials, Atalanta knows the future of the player who will leave Giampiero Gasperini’s team at the end of the season.