Five things to look for in Serie A

Rome (AFP) – Juventus may have clinched an eighth straight Serie A title and Chievo might be doomed to relegation but for the teams in between there is a lot at stake in Serie A.

AFP Sport looks at five key games in Italy this weekend.

Inter have greater needs than Juve 

Juventus travel to the San Siro to play Inter Milan on Saturday in a match that matters more to the hosts.

Juve’s Scudetto title is secure, their injury list is long and early exits in the Champions League and Coppa Italia mean there are no other competitions to worry about.

But this is the ‘Derby d’Italia’. 

One small target for Juventus is a shared place in the record books with themselves. If Juventus win their five remaining matches they will equal the Serie A record of 102 points they set in 2013-14.

There is also a chance that Cristiano Ronaldo could add a Serie A scoring title to his 2008 Premier League Golden Boot and his three Spanish Pichichis.

Ronaldo has 19 league goals, three fewer than Fabio Quagliarella of Sampdoria and two less than Krzysztof Piatek of AC Milan and Duvan Zapata of Atalanta.

Third-place Inter’s recent form has been so erratic — all-conquering away, hopeless at home — that it isn’t clear whether they should be thinking of catching Napoli ahead or worrying about fending off the snapping pack of pursuers behind.

Lazio fans in spotlight 

Quagliarella is in action on Sunday when Sampdoria host Lazio, but he will be sharing the attention with the visiting fans 

For Sampdoria, helping their striker to win an unlikely first top scorer ‘Capocannoniere’ title at 36 is just about the only target left after a traumatic season.

For inconsistent Lazio this is a chance to revive their pursuit of European qualification after a horrible home loss to relegated Chievo last weekend.

When Lazio rebounded by winning 1-0 away to AC Milan on Wednesday to reach the Coppa Italia final, the result was over-shadowed, once again, by their fans.

A flash mob of as many as 50 supporters assembled before the game, displayed a banner reading “Honour to Benito Mussolini,” sang fascist songs and performed the Nazi salute near the spot in Milan where partisans strung up Il Duce’s corpse in 1945.  

Lazio defended themselves on Thursday by condemning “the simplistic tendency of the media to consider the entire Lazio fanbase responsible for isolated elements.”

from World Soccer Talk http://bit.ly/2UCflY0