Last weekend of 2024 for Serie A, then off to the transfer market. The world of Italian football heats up, as always at this time of year and between the pitch and the offices it’s time for the finishing touches before the part of the season where everything will be decided. We won’t be starting from scratch, that’s clear, but the next month or so will be decisive, in every sense. The Serie A ranking is clear and is probably not what was expected at the start of the championship. Gasperini’s Atalanta is in the lead, then there are Napoli and Inter, in second and third place respectively, even if the Nerazzurri have a game in hand. Then Lazio, who precede Fiorentina (who must recover the match against Inter) and Juventus. The Viola and the Bianconeri will meet in a match that is worth much more than three points, but we will return to it later, and all the teams we have listed will be grappling, more or less, with incoming and outgoing negotiations, with the various managements who cannot make mistakes.
The championship shots.
The path that will lead to the championship is more open than ever and all the top six in the class can have their say, with different logics and different objectives. However, we cannot help but start from the top of the class, that Atalanta which, after winning the 2024 Europa League, is ready to make history in Italy too. However, an effort, or maybe two, will be needed on the market. The club knows this well, given that the stoppage of Retegui, who arrived to replace Scamacca in August, is an unexpected event that cannot go unnoticed. And so, over the next few weeks, D’Amico & co. they will get to work to give Gasperini another alternative at the center of the attack. A center forward or a winger? The market will tell us this, but there could also be a double blow, given that an opportunity like this year’s may not come so often.
Conte doesn’t give in.
It is certainly no mystery that two of Atalanta’s targets for the advanced department are currently within the squad of second-placed Napoli. The Goddess likes Giacomo Raspadori and GIovanni Simeone a lot but you can bet that Antonio Conte, as he made clear many times this year in the press conference, will do everything he can to keep all his men with him and for nothing in the world will he want to reinforce a direct competitor. Don’t sell but buy yes and so Napoli continues to look at Juventus, where Danilo is ready to pack his bags.
Stories of captains who will go elsewhere.
Some time ago the Brazilian defender himself stated that a captain cannot leave in the middle of the season but Juventus does not seem to think so, so much so that they have already communicated to the person concerned, who has taken note and accepted, that they will part ways within the next 3 February, the day on which the repair market will officially end. He won’t be the only player to leave the band in January. Fiorentina will in fact say goodbye to both Cristiano Biraghi and Lucas Martinez Quarta, captain and deputy in purple. Things that seemed truly impossible in September but everything has changed and no one will go back. As mentioned earlier, Juventus and Fiorentina will face each other on Sunday at 6pm at the Allianz Stadium and whoever wins will take the lead, taking three points but above all morale and awareness. Thiago Motta has more to lose than Raffaele Palladino but the latter in the event of a knockout would line up his third consecutive defeat and risk nullifying, at least in part, the splendid progress made to date.
In short, first the pitch, then the transfer market, with Inter appearing to be, at least on paper, the non-paying spectator of the negotiation period. But never say never, in January you know, opportunities come out of nowhere and sometimes they can be the ones that direct the season in a way that is as positive as it is unexpected.