Juventus’ top-four status in Serie A continues to look far from secure after their late 1-0 defeat to Atalanta, who have now overtaken the Old Lady for third place in the table.
Juve are now just two points ahead of fifth-placed Napoli, who finally halted Inter’s 11-match winning run in the league with a 1-1 draw.
Elsewhere, Simone Inzaghi’s Lazio emerged victorious over older brother Filippo in a very exciting Inzaghi derby while the relegation battle took another unexpected turn.
Here is SBOTOP’s list of winner and losers from the latest round of Serie A fixtures.
Winner: Atalanta
Atalanta are now in the driver’s seat for third place after a 1-0 victory over Juventus at the Gewiss Stadium thanks to Ruslan Malinovskiy’s late goal three minutes from time.
La Dea’s recent Serie A 2021 results have been outstanding; they have won five games in a row and eight of their last nine in the league to lift themselves up to third, two points clear of Juventus.
Gian Piero Gasperini has done another incredible job managing a team with such limited resources and is on course to lead them to the Champions League once again.
And Gasperini can also deliver the club’s first major trophy in nearly 60 years if he can once again beat Juventus in the Coppa Italia final next month.
Loser: Juventus
As for Juventus, they were without the injured Cristiano Ronaldo in that big match against Atalanta, and it showed. Ronaldo’s absence was keenly felt as the Bianconeri managed a mere one shot on target. Paulo Dybala, who started in Ronaldo’s place, did not have a single shot before being substituted.
Granted, Ronaldo’s loss would be a huge blow for most teams and Atalanta are quite a good team. But a team of Juve’s stature should still be expected to produce a better performance despite missing their star man.
There is still time for Andrea Pirlo’s side to claw their way back to third, especially with a couple of winnable games against Parma and Fiorentina coming up. However, it remains to be seen whether a third-place finish will be enough to save Pirlo’s job.
Winner: Simone Inzaghi
After the first Inzaghi derby of the season ended in a goalless stalemate, the second one went to younger brother Simone as his Lazio side won a 5-3 thriller against Filippo’s Benevento.
Ciro Immobile bagged a brace as he finally ended his extended goal drought in Serie A. The Lazio captain had last scored in the league in early February.
Lazio have now won five games in a row and are still in with a shout of crashing into the Champions League places. They are currently in sixth, four points back of Juve in fourth, but they still have a game in hand.
Although, the Biancocelesti still have some tough games left on their schedule. They have back-to-back games against Napoli and AC Milan coming up, and the Serie A 2021 betting odds are unlikely to favour them to win either of those games.
Loser: Filippo Inzaghi
On the other side, not only did Filippo lose to his younger brother, but he also saw his Benevento side get sucked back into the relegation scrap.
The newly promoted club is one of three teams tied at 30 points, but they are in 17th due to an inferior goal difference.
After a bright start to the season, Benevento have won just twice this year, one of which was their famous 1-0 victory at Juventus last month. Inzaghi will still have some work to do in the last few weeks of the season to prevent Benevento from going back down to Serie B.
Winner: Torino
Torino are one of those teams tied with Benevento at 30 points after they picked up a huge 3-1 win over seventh-placed Roma.
Roma, who fielded a significantly rotated squad after their Europa League quarter-final exploits in midweek, took the lead after just three minutes. But Torino stormed back to secure a crucial win that sends them five points clear of the relegation zone with one game still in hand.
Manager Davide Nicola has done a brilliant job since taking over from Marco Giampaolo in January. They have won four of his 12 games in charge, three of which have come in the last five games.
Loser: Parma
There was even more drama down in the relegation zone as Parma lost a thrilling relegation six-pointer against Cagliari 4-3.
Parma were 3-1 up on the hour mark and 3-2 up after 90 minutes, but they conspired to concede two Cagliari goals in stoppage time to cough up the points.
The win sees Cagliari move to within five points of Fiorentina, Torino, and Benevento, who are all on 30 points with just seven games to go.
As for Parma, they are a further five points back of Cagliari and look dead and buried at this point.
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