This weekend had it all: Juventus strolling, Napoli exploding, Zemanlandia, and a few quieter performances that could well help shape the table later in the season.
Serie A scores, week 8: Napoli strike rich, Sampdoria hold Roma
Napoli had the most dramatic performance of the week and Juvents ran out with probably the easiest win, but don’t look past Sampdoria holding Roma to a draw.
Saturday started off with a bang, with Empoli hosting Cagliari and Serie A getting it’s first full taste of the power of Zemanlandia it’s gotten in some time. Cagliari has been slow to fully adjust to Zdenek Zeman’s all-attack-all-the-time tactics this season, but in this match they ran rampant over their hosts, as Empoli could only try to slow them down en route to four first half goals.
The real highlight of the day, though, was Sampdoria hosting Roma in a battle of second and third place. Sampdoria have been one of the surprises of the season, with Sinisa Mihajlovic’s side entering the weekend in third despite scoring just nine goals thanks to an impressive defense and smart performances. This weekend, they kept a lethal Roma side deadlocked, efficiently limiting their chances and applying enough pressure to keep their guests from amping up their attack too much as the match wore on. Sampdoria would have been happier with a win, but a hard-fought draw against a title contender is nothing to be ashamed of.
On Sunday, Napoli stole the show with an explosive performance. They allowed a goal just 26 seconds in, with Emil Hallfredsson hammering home a rebound seemingly before the fans had a chance to settle in to their seats. The partenopei were able to equalize just before the half, however, and a stunning second half performance featuring five Napoli goals was more than enough to send the crowd home with smiles on their faces. Marek Hamsik and Gonzalo Higuain both broke long league goal droughts in impressive fashion, with a brace and a hat trick respectively, and maybe, just maybe, Napoli have found what they needed to break out of their early season malaise.
Elsewhere, Juventus were hardly challenged by a poor Palermo side as they won 2-0 to lengthen their lead atop the table. More important to Juve fans, though, was the continued poor form of Andrea Pirlo, as well as a late injury to Leonardo Bonucci that left him hobbling through the match's closing minutes. Udinese and Lazio continued their quietly impressive starts to the season, with confident home wins over Atalanta and Torino.
Less impressive were AC Milan, who threw away a second-half lead at home to Fiorentina, letting Josip Ilicic score far too easy a goal to equalize with less than half an hour left in the match. Parma also continued their horrid form, making Sassuolo look like they were good enough to challenge for a European place in a 3-1 loss at home. Parma are still stuck at the bottom of the table, below even Chievo Verona, who fell to pieces against Genoa at home when they had a chance to steal a point against a better side.
With Roma dropping two points, the top of the table is slowly getting tighter. Roma stand at 19 points, with Udinese and Sampdoria are just three points behind them, and the pair of Lazio and AC Milan another point further back. Then there’s Napoli at 14 points, though their form has been wildly inconsistent, and they have a rough stretch of their schedule coming up over the next month. While most were expecting the top three spots to be the big slugfest this season, it’s starting to look like second through seventh are where most of the action will be in this Serie A campaign.
Week Eight Scores
Juventus 2-0 Palermo -- full match report
Sampdoria 0-0 AS Roma -- full match report
AC Milan 1-1 Fiorentina -- full match report
Chievo Verona 1-2 Genoa
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