Are late goals proving Serie A is Europe's most exciting league?

The seven sisters are breaking away. Their heads are down, they’re pedalling hard and the rest of Serie A can’t keep up.  Last weekend a five-point gap emerged between Inter in seventh and Torino in eighth. Unlike in previous years when the race to claim the final Europa League spot has been a bit more open, this season it’s almost a closed shop. And that must be a bitter pill to swallow for Torino in particular.  

Sinisa Mihajlovic has improved the team by six points on where they were at this stage a year ago. This is the best first half of the season the club has had since Serie A introduced three points for a win in 1994. But a little stumble like the one Torino had on the road at Sassuolo on Sunday will cost dear, especially, when you consider the pace being set by the teams in front of them. It’s relentless. “They’re all running,” Mihajlovic lamented. There is absolutely no let up.  

The top seven all won at the weekend and, while it’s mainly the usual suspects, Atalanta remain in their midst. They continue to be the revelation of this season in Serie A. It was expected they might come unstuck in Verona at the weekend. Chievo are tough nut to crack. They beat Inter at the Bentegodi on opening day and had previously conceded only nine goals at home.  

Gian Piero Gasperini was without his first choice midfield. He left Roberto Gagliardini on the bench ahead of his move to Inter and Franck Kessie is away at the Africa Cup of Nations in Gabon. In the end it was all water off a duck’s back. Rather than suffer, Atalanta put in arguably their best performance of the season and fired four past that stubborn Chievo defence, registering the most emphatic win of any of the top seven to wrap up the girone d’andata.  

True, Juventus also made things look very easy indeed against Bologna on Sunday night, running out 3-0 winners in Turin. Gonzalo Higuain opened the scoring after just seven minutes, volleying home a beautiful ball lofted over the defence by fellow summer signing Miralem Pjanic, and it was plain-sailing from there on out. The champions established a new Serie A record with a 26th straight victory in the league at the J Stadium.   

In historical terms, it matches what the great Bayern team of Gerd Müller and Franz Beckenbauer achieved in the `70s and is only bettered in Europe’s top five leagues by the Saint Etienne side from the same decade (28) and Helenio Herrera’s Barça (30).  

Reflecting on how much of a pushover Bologna were in Turin, Leonardo, now working as a pundit for Sky Italia, raised an interesting point with coach Roberto Donadoni. Bearing in mind the bottom three in Serie A are now castaways and the relegation battle all but over, particularly now fourth from bottom Empoli are seven points clear of the drop zone after Saturday’s win against Palermo, is there the risk of some teams getting too comfortable. Donadoni, not unsurprisingly, rejected that notion out of hand. A better response than his invitation to come and watch how Bologna train on a weekly basis was provided, however, by five of the opponents the top seven faced at the weekend. They really made them sweat for their points. 

A 93rd minute Manolo Gabbiadini penalty clinched Napoli a point in Florence in the game of the season before the winter break and on Saturday they needed a 95th minute winner from debutante Lorenzo Tonelli to put away 10-man Samp. While it’s true Inter are now on a four-game winning streak in Serie A, it isn’t wrong to suggest they have also been second best in the first half of three of those games. Stefano Pioli’s side deserved to be 2-0 down going into the interval in Udine on Sunday lunchtime but Mauro Icardi created a goal out of nothing for Ivan Perisic seconds before the break. The Croatia international managed to turn the game around completely, sinking Udinese with a towering header in the 87th minute to keep Inter on a roll. No team has recovered more points (12) from losing positions this season.  

Milan and Lazio also left it very late on Sunday afternoon. Both one-goal wins were secured at the death by two strikers, Carlos Bacca and Ciro Immobile, who ended long goal droughts. The only exception to this rule, aside from Atalanta and Juventus of course, were Roma. A first half Armando Izzo own-goal was all that separated them and Genoa at Marassi. Wojciech Szczesny was their Man of the Match as Roma dug in impressively and returned to the capital with a precious win against an opponent that has upset Juventus, Milan and Fiorentina on home soil this season.  

“Nerves of steel” was Il Corriere della Sera’s assessment. “They’re learning from Juve,” added La Repubblica. Grinding out results. Edging close games. Showing mental toughness. Sometimes getting a little lucky. Max Allegri’s “fiuuuuu’ tweet from a couple of years ago springs to mind. As does another more recent one. “To think only a few years ago the final 20 minutes of games were the most boring,” Allegri posted after late goals from Higuain and Pjanic decided the Turin derby. Not anymore. Teams are going for it more. They’re less willing to settle for a draw. Juventus, for instance, haven’t drawn at all. Much to the delight of Arrigo Sacchi, attitudes have changed. More managers are now thinking about scoring one more than their opponent rather than conceding one less.  

The weekend’s events weren’t a freak either. Of the 518 goals scored in Serie A this season, 124 have come in the last quarter of an hour. That’s 23.9%, a figure that’s up on the last five years. Forty three have been decisive and unsurprisingly the most clutch player of all is current Capocannoniere Mauro Icardi. Six of his 14 goals this season have come in the 75th minute or later and usually with Inter, who lead the way in this regard with 10, most of those goals have been very big indeed either turning a loss into a draw or a draw into a win. 

Boring, Serie A is not. Dramatic conclusions to games have made this season a much more enjoyable watch than those negative nellies who point out Juventus are four-points clear with game in hand would have you believe.