Roma were unable to qualify for the Champions League last season, but management kept Paulo Fonseca at the helm, giving him the same challenge. While the Romans are trying to break into the top six without much success, at the moment they are only sixth in the table. Nevertheless, the situation remains quite solvable. Only two points are missing before the fourth Juventus. At the same time, Roma will have to withstand serious competition from Lazio and Atalanta, who are lower in the table, but also clearly expect to finish in the Champions League zone, so the fight is expected to be fierce. Having played two unsuccessful matches against Napoli (0:4) and Sassuolo (0:0), Roma threw out all their anger at Bologna in the last round. Five goals were sent to the Rossoblu goal already by the break. The Wolves conceded only once. In the end, the fight ended in a victory for the Romans with a score of 5:1, which ended a series of two unsuccessful matches.
Napoli is unlikely to set itself the task of winning the Scudetto, but it hardly makes sense to exclude Gennaro Gattuso’s team from the number of contenders today. Under current conditions, when Juventus is unstable, the Neapolitans are quite capable of coping with this task. In the meantime, the “parthenopeans” are in third place in the table with 23 points in the asset, but they lost one point for unsportsmanlike reasons. After an annoying but well-deserved defeat with a score of 1:3 from Milan in the eighth round, Napoli drew conclusions. In the following matches the Neapolitans did not lose a single point, beating alternately Roma (4:0), Crotone (4:0) and Sampdoria (2:1). The last match turned out to be the most difficult. The bluecherchiatti opened the score, but thanks to efforts of Irving Lozano and Andrea Petagni, they managed to snatch a strong-willed victory. As for the performances in the European competition, Napoli solved all their questions in the Europa League in the last round, having scored a 1:1 draw with Real Sociedad. This point allowed the Patenopaeans to keep the first line in the table and now in the playoffs they will face Granada in February.
