Italian Clubs

Liverpool is almost certainly into the 2018 Champions League Final holding, at the time of writing this, a 7–3 aggregate lead over Roma. They’ve equalled Roma’s away goal tally, but they’ve also conceded a brilliant own goal involving Real Madrid’s favorite defensive liability, Dejan Lovren.

The goal was scored by the greatest playmaker the Champions League has ever seen, James Milner, and I think you can already tell how special this is. 

How quickly can a man go from hero to villain?

For Kalidou Koulibaly, it was less than ten minutes of actual game time. After scoring the winning goal against Juventus in the dying minutes, reviving Napoli’s floundering title challenge, he was sent off in the first five minutes of the next game away to Fiorentina, squandering any resurgent hopes by setting the scene for a 3-0 thrashing by the home side.

Mo Salah is on another planet. After a tense first half hour of the match in which Roma had the game's best chances, Liverpool began to threaten with attacks over the top. After a few Sadio Mane missed chances, the PFA Player of the Year stepped up in a big way. Two vintage Mo Salah goals have spotted the Reds with a significant advantage at the half.

Last week, we asked whether Serie A has a Juventus problem. With the title race seemingly done and dusted, a seventh scudetto securely in the bag, the question was whether this record-breaking period of success was in danger of undermining the Italian game.

This was meant to be a blockbuster weekend. There was so much going on in Serie A. The Rome derby. Inter versus Atalanta. Milan versus Napoli. All the fallout from the midweek European ties. The build up to next weekend’s potential title decider in Turin.

Instead, it all kind of fizzled out. All of the most interesting fixtures ended in goalless draws, extinguishing any chance of a title race and offering us no progress in the race for the Champions League. A damp squib of a weekend, all build up and no pay off.