Serie A sees out 2018 with division, controversy and a relentless Juventus
Kalidou Koulibaly was suspended for Napoli’s final game of 2018. He will miss the first league fixture of next year, too. He had been one yellow card away from a ban before picking up two in the Boxing Day defeat to Inter. Serie A’s sporting judge was not minded to show leniency towards a player who lost his cool after being racially abused.
Still, Koulibaly did not want to miss Saturday’s game at home to Bologna. He took up a seat in the stands at the Stadio San Paolo, and was greeted by the sight of his own face: over and over. Thousands of Koulibaly masks had been distributed before kick-off so fans could show their support for the player. Down on the pitch, Faouzi Ghoulam ran out to warm up in the centre-back’s No 26 shirt.
It was an uplifting sight, after grim events at San Siro. Yet there were reminders even here of deeply divided outlooks among followers of Italian football. Ultras on the two Curve behind the goals declined to wear the Koulibaly masks. They were instead standing in solidarity with Daniele Belardinelli, the Varese ultra who was run over and died after an attack on a minibus full of Napoli supporters headed to the Inter game.
Theirs was not an isolated gesture. At Parma’s Stadio Tardini, Roma ultras in the away section raised a sign bidding Belardinelli farewell. Back in the capital, counterparts from Lazio were barred from bringing a banner honouring him into the Stadio Olimpico. As word filtered through, the Curva Nord emptied for an impromptu firsthalf strike.
Elsewhere, fists, feet and worse were thrown as ultras from Torino and Bologna – two teams not even playing each other – crossed paths at a service station outside Florence. A bus window was smashed, but mercifully no serious injuries reported.
Should this weekend’s games even have gone ahead? Italy’s prime minister, Giuseppe Conte, had argued for a “pause that could offer everyone a chance for productive reflection”. The Football Federation president, Gabriele Gravina, argued the opposite side, suggesting that stopping would send a signal to violent thugs that they were in charge.
He did hand down punishments to Inter specifically. The Nerazzurri will play their first two home games of 2019 behind closed doors, and then one further match with the Curva Nord – the section from which the abuse of Koulibaly originated – empty of fans.
Not everyone agreed with that punishment. Matteo Salvini, the ubiquitous interior minister, had a letter published in Gazzetta dello Sport in which he argued that stadium bans punished innocent parties as well as the guilty. He called for “zero tolerance with delinquents”, but also questioned why racism should be treated differently to other forms of abuse directed at players, asking: “What is the boundary between a racist insult and a regular insult, nothing more?”
The political debates will no doubt continue through the forthcoming winter break. Serie A does not return until 19 January, though many of its clubs will play in the last-16 of the Coppa Italia one week before.
What hope remains for a title race in the second half of this campaign? Juventus, with a 2-1 win over Sampdoria on Saturday, maintained a nine-point advantage on top. Their 17 wins and two draws represent the best return any club has ever achieved at Serie A’s midway stage.
They caught some breaks at the weekend. The penalty from which Sampdoria equalised at 1-1 was questionable, but the one from which Juventus restored their advantage looked even more dubious. Emre Can and Alex Ferrari were each struck on the arm by the ball as they defended set-pieces, but was either gesture deliberate? The German player’s limb was at least raised, whereas the Italian’s was tight to his side. He was also unsighted, with two players leaping in front of him.
The disallowing of Ricky Saponara’s injury-time goal was more clear-cut: the player coming from an offside position at the start of the move (even if it did feel like a shame to cancel out such a gorgeous strike). All three decisions were either made or confirmed with the assistance of an on-pitch VAR review. But that only led one journalist from Corriere dello Sport to conclude that a conspiracy was afoot.
“They want to boycott VAR,” wrote Edmondo Pinna on Monday. “We’re exaggerating, of course, but that would be the simplest explanation for the chaos that has taken hold of the refereeing world in Serie A.”
More than the technology itself, the real problem seems to be a lack of any shared understanding about what constitutes a handball. If these were penalties, then why did Fiorentina not get one when Federico Chiesa’s shot deflected from Miguel Veloso’s boot on to his arm during their draw with Genoa? Referee Davide Massa did conduct an on-pitch review, but concluded that the gesture had been accidental
Then again, there were head-scratching decisions of different varieties across the peninsula as well: from penalties given and overlooked in Lazio’s draw with Torino through to a dubious red card for Cagliari’s Luca Ceppitelli after minimal contact with Udinese’s Ignacio Pussetto. In more than one stadium, 2018 ended to a chorus of insults for the referee.
There were happier notes to be found as well, however. Chievo picked up their first win of the season at the 19th time of asking; a sparkling Atalanta stuck six goals past Sassuolo; and Gonzalo Higuaín ended his two-month goal drought. His winner against Spal might well have kept Gennaro Gattuso in a job.
Back in Naples, Koulibaly celebrated after seeing Dries Mertens seal victory for Napoli over Bologna with a brilliant strike in the 88th minute. It was plain that the masks and banners of support had meant a great deal to him, even if some sections of the Stadio San Paolo abstained.
“The emotions from this day and this win will stay in my heart forever,” he wrote on Twitter afterwards. “Thank you.”
Such gratitude cuts both ways. Napoli’s calamitous defending in a 3-2 win reminded us of how important Koulibaly has been to them this season. His absence will be felt against Lazio on 20 January, on the pitch at least. It is a safe bet that we will see his face once more in the stands.