Serie A 2012, Week 13 preview and fixtures: Juventus, Napoli kick off the week in style

Well, this is unusual. In Week 13, the tastiest match-ups both occur on Saturday -- which at least means we don’t need to make hand-wringing choices about which match to watch on Sunday. And don’t make the mistake of thinking the week ends with the Derby della Lanterna on Sunday evening, because we’ve got Roma and Torino on Monday night. Hurray for getting to watch plenty of good games!

The weekend kicks off in Turin, with Lazio visiting Juventus, and hoping to fare better than Pescara last time around. The biancocelesti started off the season so well, but have fallen into fifth, and they’d rather like to get back into those precious three Champions League spots. But after the six goals Juve scored against Pescara, you have to think Vladimir Petković isn’t exactly confident about his side’s chances.

Then comes Milan’s visit to Naples. Napoli will still be flying high after last week’s come from behind victory over Genoa, and the rossoneri performance recently probably won’t have them chewing their fingernails. But Napoli, despite being in third, absolutely love to show off creative ways of losing -- so don’t take it as a given that the home side will grab all three points.

Take your pick of matches during the Sunday afternoon spot -- there’s a lot of relegation six pointers taking place -- but make sure to save some time at the end of the day for the derby between Sampdoria and Genoa. Things aren’t going so well for either side -- Samp has ten points, one above Genoa, whose loss to Napoli last week saw them drop into the relegation zone. Genoa have lost five in a row, Sampdoria have lost seven. Neither side can score goals. But it’s a derby and it’ll be feisty, so watching is obligatory.