Italian Serie A, Round 11: A.C. Milan-Palermo, Roma-Fiorentina Highlight Top Half Battles

Serie A features a full slate of games this Wednesday, with all 20 teams in action. The Milan-Palermo and Roma-Fiorentina matches will be the biggest highlights, while all of the other title contenders are in tricky games that they should win.

Juventus go away to Brescia, who are fighting to avoid the drop. The signing of Fabio Quagliarella has spurred on Juve and they look poised to challenge the contenders to the end. They will be a scary team to watch when Milos Krasic returns from injury, but for now, the Old Lady will likely lean heavily on winger Simone Pepe.

Edinson Cavani, Marek Hamsik, and Napoli will have a bit of a test with an away match against Cagliari. Alessandro Matri has impressed early on for the side from Sardinia, but they’ve yet to get the production they expected out of Robert Acquafresca. The real story is their defense, though, especially at home. Cagliari have allowed just two goals at Stadio Sant’Elia. The likes of Cavani, Hamsik, and Ezequiel Lavezzi would like to reverse that trend.

Elsewhere in Serie A, Lazio go away to Cesena while Inter Milan go away to Lecce. Although both are away games, both of the favorites should be able to get all three points to stay near the top of the table.

Roma will come into their game against Fiorentina without Jeremy Menez, most likely, as he was removed after 40 minutes in the Rome Derby...ahem...Derby della Capitale with an injury. Julio Baptista could come in for him in a straight swap, but Claudio Ranieri could also opt for two holding midfielders, with either David Pizarro or Matteo Brighi coming in. This would definitely give them the best chance to keep the ball off the feet of Adrian Mutu. Roma will also have Francesco Totti back, and he will likely replace either Marco Borriello or Mirko Vucinic.

As important as Ranieri’s selections will be today, the biggest squad selection decisions will be placed on Palermo manager Dello Rossi. It appears that his top scorer from last season, Fabrizio Miccoli, is finally fit enough to start. Palermo supporters and Serie A neutrals alike are frothing at the mouth at the prospect of Miccoli, Javier Pastore, and Josep Ilicic playing together on the same field. Mauricio Ferreira Pinilla has performed admirably so far, but Miccoli adds a completely different dimension to the Aquile.

Regardless of Palermo’s depth and attacking flair, A.C. Milan still have to be considered slight favorites for today’s match. Pato, Ronaldinho, and Andrea Pirlo were all rested against Bari and should all start today’s match. Zlatan Ibrahimovic will play center forward, so Robinho is likely the odd man out. To contain Ilicic and Pastore, Milan will likely want to play at least one athlete that can cover some serious ground and at least one crunching tackler with Pirlo. Mathieu Flamini and Gennaro Gattuso seem like the logical choices, but no one should ever be surprised to see Massimo Ambrosini get a start, as his intelligence and experience often makes up for any advantages Gattuso or Flamini has over him.

We’ll have live updates of Palermo-Milan starting at 2:40 Eastern time, as well as halftime and full time updates of the other matches across Italy.