December 29, 2018
Juventus 2–1 Sampdoria
Juventus – Cristiano Ronaldo 2’ 65’(pen)
Sampdoria – Fabio Quagliarella 33’
Chievo Verona 1–0 Frosinone
Chievo Verona – Emanuele Giaccherini 76’
Empoli 0–1 Inter Milan
Inter Milan – Keita Balde 72’
Genoa 0–0 Fiorentina
Lazio 1–1 Torino
Lazio – Andrea Belotti 45+3’
Torino – Sergej Milinkovic-Savic 62’
Parma 0–2 Roma
Roma – Bryan Cristante 58’ Cengiz Under 75’
Sassuolo 2–6 Atalanta
Sassuolo – Alfred Duncan 51’ 58’
Atalanta – Duvan Zapata 19’ Alejandro Gomez 42’ Gianluca Mancini 54’ Josip Illicic 74’ 87’ 90+3’
Udinese 2–0 Cagliari
Udinese – Ignacio Pussetto 39’ Valon Behrami 57’
Napoli 3–2 Bologna
Napoli – Arkadiusz Milik 16’ 51’ Dries Mertens 88’
Bologna – Federico Santander 37’ Danilo 80’
AC Milan 2–1 SPAL
AC Milan- Samuel Castillejo 16’ Gonzalo Higuain 64’
SPAL – Andrea Petagna 13’
Lazio and Sampdoria dropping points and Roma, AC Milan and Atalanta picking up the maximum points, there is currently a healthy contest for the Fourth-place in the Serie A standings. We will take any sort of contest in the league as the title race isn’t giving us one at the moment.
Cristiano Ronaldo scored two to move up the goalscoring list Serie A on 14 goals while his Juventus side maintained an unbeaten start to the title defense.
Halfway through the season and Juventus has pulled away from the rest of the league; gaining 53 points out of a possible 57.
Another ‘1-0’ victory for Inter Milan as they look to settle in third place in the league. Lazio failing to win against Torino allowed Inter’s victory at Empoli to widen the gap between the two sides. The result also pulled their city rival Roma to two points away from the possibility of overtaking Lazio in the race for Champions League football in the 2019/20 season.
Sassuolo 2-6 Atalanta
They came into the match tied in points and Atalanta did the necessary to separate themselves from Sassuolo. Josip Illicic came from the bench in the 63rd minute and scored the final 3 goals in an 8-goal fixture between his Atalanta side and Sassuolo.
Udinese ended a run of 5 winless matches in the league after a win at home against a 10-man Cagliari.
Emanuele Giaccherini scored the only goal of the match for Chievo Verona to win their first match of the season at the midway point.
Dries Mertens late winning goal saved Napoli from dropping points at home to Bologna. With Juventus running away with the league title, Napoli can’t afford any more slips in the ‘title race’ if they are to help make the league competitive.
The final match of the round was AC Milan putting an end to 4 winless matches in the league after coming from a goal down to win by a goal against SPAL. Gonzalo Higuain scoring the winning goal to keep Milan a point away from the top four.
Roma and Torino will restart the season on January 19, 2019.
Happy New Year
