This weekend saw the return of league action. For all the Juventus fans it was a much-anticipated weekend, just as every weekend is when your team hasn't played in two weeks and sit at the top of the table, however it proved to be a very dull Sunday. Defending Serie A to fans of other leagues, or to the people who watched one Manchester United game and now think they know everything about football, is always a difficult thing to do. This weekend makes it even that much more difficult. The stigma surrounding the Serie A is that teams don't score goals, but as it was brought to my attention by a podcast I listened to, that just isn't true. Unfortunately this weekend was one that hurt the leagues reputation. Comparing the EPL and Serie A from last year, the EPL didn't score that many more goals and the EPL had more 0-0 draws. However, this weekend saw an astonishing FIVE 0-0 draws, all on Sunday. Saturday saw three exciting games. Inter lose to Catania 2-1 and now sit tied with two of three teams in the relegation zone. The unfortunate side of this is that they are only 8 points back of league leaders Juventus and Udinese, so they still have a chance to right the ship and get back in the top, especially with every other team failing to win. Milan thrashed Palermo 3-0 at the Giuseppe Meazza. The upset of the weekend came in Napoli, where the ever persistant Parma took all three points, winning 2-1 on the road, all the while losing possession 65% to 35% and outshot 15 to 8. As good of a day Saturday was, Sunday proved to be the absolute opposite. The derby in the capital proved to be a good game with Lazio coming up on top after Klose scored a late winner for his fourth goal of the season. The only other game that didn't end in a 0-0 draw was Bologna winning 2-0 against Novara. Way up in Verona, Juventus were unable to get one goal in a very frustrating game.
The match started off very slow and it didn't pick up much. It appeared that neither team wanted to push up too hard in fear of leaving themselves exposed on the counterattack. The first half was a chess match, with both coaches trying to get a feel for the other's tactics. This was a very different game then two weeks ago when Juve did nothing but attack against Milan. Juve didn't really do any attacking in the whole first half. The second half started to pick up a little more. Marchisio had a great shot that went just wide of the post. Giaccherini came on for Krasic and added a little spark but the real spark came in the form of the one, the only, the legend, our capitan, Del Piero. Coming on in the 70th minute to a roar of applauses, it took him only a short time to make an impact on the game. In the 73rd minute Del Piero rose up and smashed a header right off the post. He also made a vital clearance off the line, to prevent what surely would have been a goal. However outside of this opportunity and a few others, there weren't many good shots on net and the game ended a 0-0 draw. There were some positives from this game as the defense once again looked solid, although Chievo didn't do much to test them and looked content settling with a draw. I would have really liked to see Quagliarella come on for Vucinic towards the end but the Giaccherini injury prevented a chance of a substitution in the attacking third. It is always good seeing the new faces take the pitch for the first time so I was glad to see Estigaribbia (expect the name to be misspelled) come on but due to time restraint and the overall flow of the game, he wasn't much of an addition. One can't be too mad at a draw because at least they didn't lose but they have really squandered some wonderful opportunities to pad their lead, especially on a week that saw Napoli and Inter (don't count them out yet) drop points.
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