Juventus feel the force to appease talk of crisis and re-enter Scudetto race

A new Star Wars movie is upon us, and Oscar season is in full swing, but on Sunday many Italians were bubbling with anticipation for a double bill of footballing blockbusters instead. Four of Serie A’s finest teams were set to square off on an evening that held the potential to redefine this season’s title race.

The entertainment would begin at the Stadio San Paolo, with third-placed Napoli hosting fourth-placed Roma. Then it was on to Turin, for an encounter between the fifth-placed but resurgent reigning champions, Juventus, and a Fiorentina team that had surpassed all expectations by soaring to second.

All of those teams sat within five points of one another. League leaders Inter were a further four ahead, but they had played a game more – thrashing Udinese 4-0 the day before. Not since 2001-02, when Serie A’s top three were separated by a meagre two points, had the league known such competitive balance.

For Gazzetta dello Sport, dizzy on Star Wars hype, this was evidence that calcio’s own Force was Reawakening. The newspaper mocked up the Death Star as a football for its Saturday front page, and measured out players’ statistics with X-Wings and lightsabers inside.

— Fabrizio Bocca (@fabriziobocca1) December 12, 2015

Gazzetta dello Sport pic.twitter.com/GIL730OaP1

Against such overblown metaphors, there was something rather incongruous – but also very sweet – about the sight of Napoli’s players walking out of the tunnel with their children before kick-off. Marek Hamsik’s two boys sported mohawks to match that of their father. Pepe Reina’s brood looked rather overawed – notwithstanding the fact that their father recently had a dramatic rendition of this setting (and his own face) painted on his sons’ bedroom wall.

Napoli were expected to beat Roma. Despite a shock defeat to Bologna last weekend, they had still only dropped five points in their last 10 league games. The Giallorossi, by contrast, had not won a match in any competition for more than a month.

Wednesday’s game against BATE Borisov ought to have helped raise their spirits. A draw had been enough to send Roma through to the Champions League knockout phase for the first time in five years.

But they had required a brilliant save from Wojciech Szczesny to preserve the goalless stalemate, and they were booed off by their own supporters at the end. Ultras who had branded them a bunch of “conigli” – literally rabbits, but equivalent to the English usage of “chickens” – and dumped 50kg of carrots outside the club training ground a few days previously had not seen anything to shift their perceptions.

In light of such an atmosphere, Roma might have been pleased to play away from home on Sunday. They defended with greater composure at the San Paolo than they had all season.

Napoli attacked, as they always do, with directness and pace down the flanks. So explosive were their forays that the linesman patrolling Roma’s half of the pitch injured himself trying to keep up. Gianluca Cariolato had to be subbed off after appearing to pull a muscle in the 40th minute.

But Roma’s defenders fared much better. The central partnership of Kostas Manolas and Antonio Rüdiger has been much maligned this season, but on this occasion they kept their opponents in check. Manolas stuck to Gonzalo Higuaín like glue, and it was Roma who fashioned the better chances in the first-half – even if neither team managed a shot on target before the interval.

Napoli improved after the break. Hamsik, in particular, began to find openings, but fired wide after Higuaín released him with a deft through-ball in the 60th minute. The Slovakian would later be thwarted by a fine Szczesny double save, and the keeper also denied Dries Mertens in injury time.

Daniele De Rossi stuck the ball in the net for Roma at the far end, but his goal was disallowed after Cariolato’s replacement indicated that Rüdiger’s initial cross had drifted out of play before curling back for the midfielder to head home. It was a marginal call, but from the available camera angles looked like it was probably the right one.

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The match finished goalless – not a terrible result for either team, but a distinctly positive one for their rivals. Juventus and Fiorentina now knew that victory in their match would mean gaining on three of their most immediate rivals.

Paulo Sousa called on his Fiorentina players to show courage. He had done so himself when he joined the club in the summer, as a former Juventus player. His appointment was not initially well received by fans, who left graffiti outside the Stadio Artemio Franchi defining him as a “gobbo di merda” – a “hunchback piece of shit”.

This was not a reference to his appearance. Fiorentina supporters have long known Juventus as “gobbi”, on account of the lucky breaks that always seem to go their way. It is an old superstition in parts of Italy that hunchbacks bring good fortune.

The fans did not take long to come around to Sousa, who seemed to bring a little of that luck with him. Fiorentina had been awarded six penalties through their first 15 games – the most of any team in the division – and would win a seventh within 90 seconds of kick-off at Juventus Stadium. Giorgio Chiellini’s challenge on Federico Bernardeschi was clumsy, but it was not clear whether he actually made any contact with his opponent.

Regardless, Josip Ilicic stepped up to convert the spot-kick. The Viola’s celebrations were short-lived. They led for less than six minutes before Juan Cuadrado equalised with a looping header.

There was a cruel irony at work here. Cuadrado had been a Fiorentina player as recently as January, and the club had done everything to stop him from falling into Juventus’s hands – rejecting multiple bids from the Bianconeri before selling him to Chelsea instead. But after six miserable months in London, the Premier League club had packed him off on loan to the Old Lady anyway.

For a long time it appeared that his goal might be the last of this encounter. Juventus and Fiorentina have been the two stingiest teams in the league when it comes to shots afforded to the opposition, and after their initial nerves both teams proved highly effective in neutralising one another.

But Juventus found a breakthrough in the 80th minute. Mario Mandzukic did brilliantly to shield the ball away from Davide Astori’s sliding challenge, conjuring a pass to Paul Pogba even as he was going to ground. The Croatian was not finished there. Clambering to his feet, he chased down the play, arriving on the edge of the Fiorentina penalty area just after Pogba had fed a slide-rule pass to Paulo Dybala.

The Argentinian’s first touch was heavy, but he managed to squeeze in a shot that Ciprian Tatarusanu could only parry. Mandzukic raced in to crash home the rebound and put Juventus ahead.

Dybala added gloss to their victory with a third goal in injury-time. The fourth-most expensive signing in Juventus’s history, he has made a strong start towards justifying the €32m (with further bonuses to come) that was paid for him in the summer. His eight goals and three assists in 15 games are more than his compatriot Carlos Tevez had managed by the corresponding point of his first season in Turin.

Not that individual achievements were the priority on Sunday. This was Juventus’s sixth consecutive league win and one that put them right back in the thick of the Scudetto race. They finished the day in fourth, ahead of Roma and only two points behind each of Napoli and Fiorentina. Not bad for a club that was supposed to be in crisis after winning only one of its first six league games.

But Juventus were not the only team whose title credentials had been strengthened. When the dust settled on this captivating evening, Inter were still four points clear at the top. The Nerazzurri are now guaranteed to finish 2015 in first place.

That would be the same Inter who have lost to both Napoli and Fiorentina this season, as well as drawing with Juventus at home. An Inter whose quiet, steady progress reminds us that titles are not necessarily decided on brilliant box office weekends.

Talking points

• Let’s dwell on that Inter win a moment longer. Saturday’s clean sheet was their 11th in 16 league games, and such dependability has been no accident. Roberto Mancini has constantly adapted his formation - often mirroring those of Inter’s opponents, although he did not do so against Udinese - to counteract specific threats in each match. Couple such astute planning with the brilliant form of Samir Handanovic, who boasts the best saves-to-shots percentage of any goalkeeper in Europe’s top five leagues, and you have a recipe that might just be enough to carry a team to the Scudetto.

But what was tantalising about this latest win is that it suggested Inter could yet do better. Mauro Icardi had made a slow start to this campaign - albeit not half as disastrous as some people were making out - but scored twice at the Stadio Friuli. If he can recapture the form that made him joint-capocannoniere last season, they will not be easily caught.

• The man who finished level with Icardi at the top of those scoring charts last season was, of course, Luca Toni. Between injury and Verona’s woeful form, he too has had a tougher time of things this time around. But he scored from the penalty spot this weekend to earn his team an unlikely point away to Milan. He did it despite being two years older than both teams’ starting goalkeepers combined.

• Make that 13 points from six games for Bologna under Roberto Donadoni. Victory over Genoa was sealed by a second goal in as many games for Luca Rossetini, who has thrived since the new manager moved him out from centre-back to play on the right. Not that we can put the goals themselves down to this position switch - since each was headed home from a corner.

• Never content to let themselves be outdone by their city rivals, Lazio’s Ultras surely had Roma’s carrot protest in mind when they dumped 10 bags of manure outside their own club’s training ground last week. They were accompanied by a banner that read: “You want to make us drown in shit, but first we are going to make you eat it.”

• At long last, the debate is settled: Maccarone > Lasagna. Well, on a football pitch, anyway. Massimo Maccarone struck twice in Empoli’s 3-0 win over Carpi, while Kevin Lasagna is yet to register his first Serie A goal since helping his team to promotion.

Results: Chievo 1-0 Atalanta, Empoli 3-0 Carpi, Genoa 0-1 Bologna, Juventus 3-1 Fiorentina, Milan 1-1 Verona, Napoli 0-0 Roma, Palermo 4-1 Frosinone, Udinese 0-4 Inter