Thumbs down for Roma.

By Mirko Corli

If you don’t know much about Italian football, you may misunderstand something.

Lazio vs Inter was more than a simple game. It was actually Lazio vs Roma, again. Two weeks ago the derby in Rome saw Roma winning it 2-1 after a fantastic comeback (remember Lazio missed a penalty when they were 1-0 up): at the end of the game Roma’s captain Francesco Totti showed both his thumbs down to the tifosi, meaning that Roma’s win maybe was condemning Lazio to relegation.

Of course it wasn’t fair to Lazio’s fans, there has been even a fight in the pitch between the players at the final whistle for that. But this is football in Rome: fans are equally interested both in their team result and in the city rival’s one. And joy comes maybe more from the other team’s defeat than your team’s victory. All this explains Lazio vs Inter.

The Olympic stadium in Rome was all supporting not the nerazzurri (even if Lazio’s and Inter’s fans are twinned and friends), but both the nerazzurri and the Lazio loss that was meaning fewer chances for Roma about the title.

And so the game was a comfortable win for Inter, 2-0, even if Lazio’s keeper Muslera played a fantastic first half, stopping a lot of goal attempts from Inter.

Given all that, the title race is now still open as before: Inter 76 points, Roma 74. Inter has to finish ahead of the giallorossi to win the title. Next week Inter will host Chievo and Roma will host Cagliari: all the games will have kick off at 3pm, so the two sides fighting for the title will play at the same time.

Champions League’s last spot is still with no name written on it: Sampdoria (2-0 at home against Livorno, superb goal by Ziegler) is now in 4th place with 63 points, two points ahead of Palermo (2-1 win in Siena, still Miccoli on the news with a masterpiece). The two teams will face each other next week in Sicily and Palermo has to win: no chance with a different result.

The losers of this game will go straight into Europa League with Napoli (difficult win 2-1 in Verona against Chievo) and Juventus (1-1 in Catania). Since the Italian Cup final (due to next wednesday) is between Inter and Roma (who else?), the winner will certainly go into the Champions League, and so the 7th in the league table will join Europa League by starting a couple of weeks before the others. Juventus and Napoli will fight to save energy & rest during the summer.

Speaking of relegation, Siena and Livorno are already in second division and Atalanta will probably join them next week because of the draw the nerazzurri from Bergamo got on Sunday against direct rivals Bologna. A late own goal by Peluso condemned them to more than a virtual relegation.

Other short news from the weekend: Antonio Di Natale is going to be the top scorer of the league with 26 goals so far, Udinese’s coach Pasquale Marino almost confessed he will leave the team at the end of the season, and Rafa Benitez is, almost every day, rumoured to be Juventus’ next coach.

Enjoy the last two weeks of Serie A guys. Who will win the title according to you?