From now until the second break the league leaders can win another 4 games out of 4 and attempt to reach 24 points, for a super lead
No one is going to escape for the Scudetto in September, but Inter, from now until the second stop of the championship, has a highway ahead of them to extend with an imperial 8 out of 8, in terms of victories, and to discourage the competition, to insinuate among the opponents that Serie A already has a master, as happened a year ago with Napoli. Yesterday the Juventus and Milan matches strengthened the widespread opinion that Inter is the strongest team and the calendar until the weekend of 7 October is clear. Inter will play against Empoli (today), Sassuolo (Wednesday), Salernitana (Saturday 30 September) and Bologna (Saturday 7 October). With respect for the quartet of challengers, but without hypocrisy, it seems like an invitation to 4 plus 4, to double the successes achieved so far. It is not utopian to imagine Inter as leaders with 24 points in two weeks. Simone Inzaghi can get his first piece of the Scudetto, the opportunity is remarkable and should not be wasted.
Juventus collapse
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More than the result, the slap of a 4-2, affected the manner. Juve lost in the worst way against Sassuolo. She hurt herself. Szczesny’s errors and Gatti’s absurd own goal speak to us of self-destruction. We suspected that it would have been wrong to trust the good performance against Udinese on their debut, when it seemed that Juve had taken the path of a different, more aggressive and proactive type of football. Confirmations were needed, which did not arrive, except patchily. And yesterday in Reggio Emilia the slip-ups and contradictions of last season were seen again. The Allegri-bis remains a failure, the attempt to keep everything together by virtue of the glories that were, the repeated championships and the two Champions League finals of the first time, but the past is a foreign land, it never returns as we have it experienced or known. The refrain about the advantage that would derive from a season without cups already sounds out of tune. In the week of the first day of the Champions League, Juve trained without stress and then lost against Sassuolo, who fell three times in the top four of Serie A. Allegri’s words ring hollow, we have become accustomed to his explanations between the banal and the obvious. Allegri no longer convinces anyone, perhaps not even himself.
posthumous Milan
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Three points against Verona, useful for spending a night at the top of the table, waiting for Inter to play. Leao’s beautiful goal, sweeping away the opprobrium of the senseless back-heel against Newcastle. The good news ends here, the defeat in the derby stunned Milan, taking away the boldness and sparkle that they had shown in the first three matches, especially in the first half at the Olimpico against Roma. Milan seemed like a very strong team, in the literal sense of the word, due to the muscularity they displayed. The 5-1 dismantled him, undermined his certainties. Stefano Pioli once again resorted to the three-man defense, his tactical homeopathy. In difficulties he is convinced that a three-man line, yesterday expressed in the framework of a 3-4-2-1, is a balm and cures inflammation. Maybe, but repeated changes disorientate players. Was a wrong derby worth retreating from the strong idea of dominating football? Yesterday at San Siro Hellas maintained an average center of gravity three meters higher, indicative of a more conservative AC Milan attitude, understandable with the logic of sobering up, but not very functional to the project of a Milan that commands.
Inter opportunity
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And we return to the starting point, to the great opportunity enjoyed by Inter. Last season Inter quickly exited the grand prix due to points wasted against medium-low level teams. The defeats in Udine and La Spezia and at San Siro against Empoli and Monza, the draws against Sampdoria and Salernitana. In the first part of the new championship, the problem seems solved, Inter beat Monza and Cagliari, teams in the group that had cost them the title race a year ago. It would be sensational if Inter didn’t win today against a last-place Empoli with zero points and zero goals scored. No zero is forever, but, as much as Empoli is banking on the Andreazzoli effect, the coach who replaced Zanetti, we cannot believe that Inter will waste the first ball of the possible tear. The turnover didn’t work in Europe, in San Sebastian against Real Sociedad in the Champions League, but in Italy the size and quality of Inzaghi’s group is such that in Empoli Inter have the duty to take the three points regardless from training choices. As always, Inter’s worst enemy is Inter itself, its unpredictability, but the final in Istanbul changed something, it raised the level of mental toughness. In other times Inter would have sunk in San Sebastian, they would not have clung to the game until the end.
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