All in a few hours. A few hours to remove fears. In terms of competitiveness and in terms of physical integrity of what can be considered its leader: Gerard Deulofeu.
Here is Udinese’s Sunday, the last Sunday of the championship in 2022, given that now the championship will go into hibernation until January to allow the World Cup to take place.
The ranking
The results were far from obvious in the Europe area. First the blow of Inter in Bergamo, then a draw at the Olimpico for Roma imposed by a Turin that could have come even more dangerously close to Udinese, then Milan’s success on a tightrope over a Fiorentina which in turn proposes to approach the bianconeri of Andrea Sottil.
Moral of the football fairytale (Serie A), behind the unrivaled Napoli, there are Milan, Juventus, Inter and Lazio, in order, a hierarchy that is no longer surprising and that should lead the bianconeri to believe that a qualification in the next cups it would not be an impossible feat to put on stage, considering that Atalanta comes out reduced from the last straight of the calendar year and that Roma, undoubtedly a big one, always proves to be inconstant in terms of performance.
The path
It is clear that in order to aspire to the European goal, Sottil will have to find the September team. In two ways. The first concerns the more concrete and less affected character that Udinese must eliminate both in the offensive and in the defensive phase, where in certain matches they have suffered a little too much in the last month and a half.
But the Venaria Reale coach will also have to find the entire team as soon as possible, in the sense that recovering pawns such as Rodrigo Becao, Destiny Udogie and Jean-Victor Makengo would not be bad to get back in line with the other aspirants in the Europe area when the championship starts again. . On 4 January with Empoli, then Juventus, Bologna and Sampdoria to close the first round.
The response
In this context, Deulofeu’s announcement (which you can read in detail alongside, ndr) is definitely good news. The Juventus number 10 was only scared at Maradona where he left the pitch in tears fearing a heavy injury to his left knee: he will not have to stop during this break which will begin with a few days off before a month of real preparation, during which Sottil will have practically the entire squad available, net of those who are in the recovery phase.
The only one who will be at the World Cup among the Bianconeri is Enzo Ebosse. Which makes us smile given that in recent weeks he has proved to be one of Udinese’s weak links, certainly the one in defense.