Serie A Best Fantasy Team – Round Four

Mattia Perin (7 points): just three goalies managed to keep a clean sheet in this round, two actually in the Monday match. Perin was by far the busiest of the lot and had to intervene on several attempts by Verona, mostly from outside the box, and had his best save on a header by Marco Davide Faraoni.

Tommaso Augello (11 points): every defender for the Blucerchiati could have a place in the top XI, but the nod for everybody else naturally goes to the hard-working left-back, who assisted Fabio Quagliarella with a gorgeous cross and then hit the net with a precise little volley from outside the box. Continue reading

Serie A Best Fantasy XI – Round 37

Alessio Cragno (7 points): it was revenge of the defences in the penultimate round, as six teams managed to keep the clean sheet. Among their goalies, the Cagliari one stood out the most in the Juventus match, as he produced several great saves, with the best one coming on a late scorcher.

Danilo D’Ambrosio (9 points): Antonio Conte fielded him as tactical centre-back and the move panned out against Napoli as he was not shy in attacking despite the role and Napoli were outnumbered when it came to covering men, so he found himself wide-open in the box on a deep incursion and finished with aplomb. Continue reading

Serie A Fantasy Recap – Round 32

Standings implications: Juventus staved off Atalanta’s ambitious in the top match of the round, while Lazio fell on its face again, so the lead atop of the standings is now eight points. Inter are now tied for second place after overwhelming Torino in the second half. Roma took care of business against Brescia and remain in control of the fifth position because Napoli and Milan drew in the Sunday night game. Sassuolo won their fourth match in a row and are beginning to put a little bit of pressure on Milan, while Verona and Bologna got pipped the post by Fiorentina and Parma.

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Serie A Fantasy Preview and Predictions – Round 25 – Makeup Games

Serie A resumes with a soft relaunch that features the matches that were postponed in March.

Torino-Parma: the Granata were one of the least interesting teams fantasy-wise before the stoppage, with Andrea Belotti being the only okay piece to rely on. The coach has been working on ways to fix that and might go with a more aggressive scheme this time around, with the Rooster and Simone Zaza together and Alex Berenguer and Simone Edera on the flanks, since Simone Verdi will be out for a while. They also lost Daniele Baselli, another substantial blow, and Cristian Ansaldi, one of their biggest playmakers, is not totally right. Besides the spry Berenguer (five goals so far), it is a wait-and-see approach. Continue reading

Serie A Injury and Suspension Report – Round 26 – Second Half

Brescia: Ales Mateju will miss this round due to yellow-card accumulation, as, by letter of the law, all suspensions in Serie A are served in the next match. Ernesto Torregrossa, Romulo have recovered from the small injuries that had sidelined them recently and will play against Sassuolo. Andrea Cistana hurt his ankle in practice, Sandro Tonali has a sore quad and they will both be sidelined. 

Fiorentina: Dalbert is disqualified, while Franck Ribery returned to full training following his massive ankle sprain, but he will need some time to get his conditioning up.

Genoa: Stefano Sturaro is trying to shake off some muscle fatigue and he is questionable, like Marko Pajac, who has spent time on the shelf with a sore tibia. Paolo Ghiglione (thigh) is progressing but this week is likely too early. Continue reading

Serie A Injury and Suspension Report – Round 26

Atalanta: Rafael Toloi will miss the next game due to a hamstring strain, while Berat Djimsiti with a bruised quad.

Bologna: Ibrahima Mbaye is suspended. The infirmary is emptying out since Nicola Sansone, Gary Medel and Federico Santander are poised to be available following thigh strains, Roberto Soriano after a bruise, leaving only Mitchell Dijks (foot), Ladislav Krejci (knee) and Mattias Svanberg (thigh) on the shelf. Continue reading

Serie A Fantasy Preview – Round 23

Roma-Bologna: the Giallorossi are in a funk and have played just one convincing game out of the last five. They will be without Lorenzo Pellegrini due to suspension and it is a massive loss considering that he is the mastermind of their offense. They should get Henrikh Mkhitaryan back from injury and perhaps even starting considering the hole at no.10. The other option is likely Diego Perotti and they seem to always be awarded a penalty when he is out there. Edin Dzeko has scored in three straight games and they will face a pretty suspect back-line. Cengiz Under took a step back versus Sassuolo, but he is always pretty assertive when he decides to play, while Justin Kluivert has not done much since coming back from injury, but should improve over time. Paulo Fonseca has elected to keep Aleksandar Kolarov on the bench in the last two matches for tactical reasons, but the decision has not really moved the needle so the stud left-back should soon be back in the XI. Continue reading

Serie A Fantasy Recap – Round 22

Standings implications: the top three teams were all successful in this round with multi-goals win, as Juventus and Inter tamed Fiorentina and Udinese, while Lazio annihilated SPAL. Atalanta only partially took advantage of Roma’s tumble in Sassuolo (2-4) as they could not get past Genoa at home (2-2), so they now share the fourth place. A slow round also in the race to an Europa League berth: Cagliari and Parma shared the spoils in a head-to-head match on Saturday and Milan and Verona did the same on Sunday. In this case there is a three-way tie, with the Scaligeri two points behind, alongside Bologna, which instead nipped Brescia. Lecce destroyed Torino and was the only team to prevail in the relegation zone: they are three points clear of the last three positions. It was not necessarily pretty, but Napoli followed up the Juventus win by defeating Sampdoria, closing in on European zone.

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Serie A Fantasy Preview – Round 22

Sassuolo-Roma: an early red card took the Neroverdi out of the Sampdoria game pretty early, but they still came away with a decent point, even though they were understandably unable to do much on offense. In the previous round, Domenico Berardi and Jeremie Boga propelled them past Torino the previous week and they have an intriguing front-line when everybody is healthy and on his day, since they are quite moody, the concerns are more on the other end and the suspension of Federico Peluso adds to those. Francesco Caputo has not scored since mid-December after a fast start, while their duo of no.10s Hamed Traore and Filip Djuricic, who generally alternate, have been able to do a decent amount of damage. Manuel Locatelli and Pedro Obiang/Francesco Magnanelli rarely attack due to their defensive position, they have combined for just one goal, while Jeremy Toljan and Grigoris Kyriakopoulos are decent fullbacks, but the match-up is pretty hard. Continue reading

Serie A Match of the Round – Atalanta vs Verona

In a round that featured Inter-Roma and Lazio-Juventus, the most entertaining match naturally ended up being Atalanta-Verona, but few were in the running since the weekend was jam-packed of action and goals.

The Goddess came into the game having snapped an unsatisfactory four-game stretch with a drubbing of Brescia last week, while Verona, which are in the midst of an intricate part of the schedule, had lost to Inter and Roma and won versus Fiorentina in the past three fixtures. Continue reading