There was a period in which all the teams that came to Friuli had to pay the “Christmas tax”, that is, to start with a goal behind. In those years Udinese at home with the little ones rarely missed a beat. Once the performance dropped and Totò retired, the story changed.
There have been seasons in which the bianconeri against low-ranking teams – in some cases they were direct competitors – struggled to score points.
In the table we have examined the last eight leagues to see how many points, out of the 18 available, Udinese has put together with the teams that are relegated at the end of the season to understand the trend, now that Pereyra and his teammates will see it in the next three shifts respectively with Cremonese, Lecce and Spezia, formations that sail between the last and the fifth last place.
Well, the best performance against the teams that then fell in the category at the end of the season was Udinese coached by Gigi Delneri who made a full booty with both breaking latest news (3-1 at the home debut of the Aquileia coach and same score at the ‘Adriatico) and Palermo and tore an equal with Empoli (the three points of the first leg in reality Udinese made them with Iachini).
In the two seasons under the Gotti management, the Juventus team has put together eight and eleven points respectively. The path was conditioned by avoidable defeats (0-1 at home with Brescia with Tudor in command) and a home thud with Lecce on the penultimate day with salvation already centered, but also the one at home with Benevento in the ’20 season – ‘ 21, a match conditioned, for a change, by a sensational failed goal 0-0 from Lasagna.
The trend improved last year with the advent of Cioffi on the Juventus bench who put together 14 points out of 18: full loot for the Tuscan coach (even with a double goal against Cagliari: (0-4 and 5-1) and with Venezia (in reality it was 3-0 in the first leg with Gotti on the bench).
With the third relegation, Genoa, two 0-0 almost photocopies arrived with Gotti’s Udinese to Friuli and Cioffi to Marassi who perhaps offered their respective worst performances of the last championship.
There was, however, worse. For example Stramaccioni, who had had a quick start like Sottil, left many points on the road in the second round losing on the fields of the last of the class: almost in photocopy the 1-0 immediately in Cesena with the one collected in Parma, then he arrived at the last day the 4-3 defeat in Cagliari.
And the following season did not go much better with the Colantuono-De Canio tandem. The double defeat against Carpi on the last day of the two groups weighed on the balance sheet. Here, just that game is a warning. Even if, it must be said, today’s Udinese appears to be a completely different team compared to that of the time.