Why Serie A teams STILL don’t know when they’re playing this weekend | OneFootball

There’s a lot at stake this weekend in Serie A. Sure, we already know Inter have won the league, and that Verona and Pisa are going down. But with two games left, there’s a lot more to be decided.

Who’ll be the third team getting relegated: Lecce or Jamie Vardy’s Cremonese? And at the other end of the table, with three points between third and sixth, who’s going into which European competition?

After Inter beat Lazio in Wednesday’s Coppa Italia final, we now know that fifth and sixth will get Europa League football and seventh will get Conference League. But it’s a top-four spot that everyone really wants.

Napoli, on 70 points, will probably get it, despite losing their last game. As for the other two, it’s anyone’s guess between Juventus (68), Milan (67), Roma (67) and Como (65). This weekend could be crucial.

There’s just a slight problem. No one actually knows for sure when they’re playing yet.

It all stems from complications around this weekend’s big game: the derby between Roma and Lazio. It’s a tricky game to police at the best of times, but if it gets played on Sunday, it’ll clash with the final of the Italian tennis open – which is played in the same complex as the Stadio Olimpico.

On Wednesday, the Coppa Italia final was staged at the Olimpico at the same time as the tennis. Smoke from the celebrations after Inter’s win caused the concurrent tennis game to be delayed by 20 minutes.

Understandably, the authorities don’t want to deal with what could be a heated derby and the final of the tennis at the same time.

Thus, it’s been suggested to move the Rome derby to Monday evening, which contradicts the usual reluctance to play the game at night, when the risk of violence can increase.

The original plan had been for a Sunday kick-off, which would have to be early to avoid major crossovers with the tennis.

Now, this is where it gets a bit messy. Serie A want all the teams vying for Champions League qualification to play at the same time as each other.

Thus, that means Napoli travelling to Pisa, Como hosting Parma, Milan travelling to Genoa and Juventus hosting Fiorentina all at the same time as the Rome derby.

And this week has been full of back and forth appeals between the authorities about when to put the Rome derby, with a new kick-off time seemingly being suggested every time you look.

As if often the case, it’s the fans suffering here. No one can plan for certain when they’ll be following their team.

Obviously, the local Roma and Lazio fans don’t have too far to travel (although both clubs have international support too, some of whom will have made plans to fly in for the occasion), but Naples to Pisa can be a six-hour drive, and for Juventus v Fiorentina, Florence to Turin can take upwards of four hours.

As the appeals continue, everyone remains in the dark. And the game that’s the root cause of the issue could, ironically, end up emptier than usual.

Not only have Lazio’s ultras been staying away from some of their games in protest to the club’s ownership, but sections of Roma’s ultras said on Wednesday that they would boycott the derby if it was played on Monday.

Conversely, after Lazio’s loss in the Coppa Italia final the same evening, Maurizio Sarri said his side could boycott the derby if it gets scheduled for Sunday.

Of course the two rivals weren’t going to agree on when the best time for the game would be. But they can probably agree it’s been an unnecessary farce.

“My feeling is that I’ll come on Monday, but if they want to play the derby at midday on a Sunday, I’m not coming. They can do it themselves,” said Sarri.

“This is a series of errors made by the Lega Serie A, they organised the Turin Derby around the ATP tennis finals in Turin, then the Rome Derby when the Italian Open is on in Rome.

“These were their mistakes and I agree with the local authorities, so I hope we play on Monday. If I was President of Lazio, I wouldn’t even show up with the squad on Sunday. It makes no difference to us either way, we’ll lose points penalties, I wouldn’t go.

“They make a series of incredible errors, nobody holds their hands up and says sorry we made a mistake. I doubt I’d keep a job if I made three or four mistakes per day. They can’t pretend this is normal, there are five teams playing games that are worth €90m for their futures, you can’t make them play at midday. This is not football.”

What a shambles. In a year in which Italian football has been in the spotlight for another failure to reach the World Cup, the lack of organisation has been exposed again.

Maybe they should just get a player each from Roma and Lazio to have a tennis match before the final instead.