Serie A: Most Compelling Storylines Remaining in the Season

Friday night's one-versus-two confrontation between Juventus and Napoli was considered by all to be a potential game changer.  A Napoli victory would have cut their deficit to three points and made the race for the scudetto a horse race to the finish.  A Juve triumph would widen their lead to nine and all but salt away their second straight title.

In the end, their 1-1 draw preserved the status quo—a six-point gap between the two sides, now with only 11 games to the finish.  Even though the bianconeri were unable to widen the gap and make it academic, at this point the odds are still good that they will defend their championship.  With the title chase in the Serie A lukewarm at best, fans must look elsewhere for big-time drama in the season's stretch run.

Where exactly will they need to look?  Let's take a peek into the Serie A and find out which of the league's stories are the most intriguing.

Who Goes to the Champions League?

Thanks to a lag in the UEFA coefficient ranking since calciopoli, Italy has only three Champions League spots nowadays.  It makes these valuable places even more precious, and everyone is trying to predict just who will occupy those three spots at the end of the day—including myself.

The top spots are currently occupied by (in order) Juventus, Napoli and Milan.  Hot on their heels are Lazio, Inter and Fiorentina.

Juve is almost a mortal lock to play in the Champions League next year.  With 12 points between them and fourth-placed Lazio with only 11 games to play, the champions would need to collapse in an epic manner in order to miss out on Europe's top competition.

Napoli is six points clear of fourth and haven't lost since December, but neither have they won in over a month.  They've drawn four straight games, form that calls to mind two separate five-game stretches a season ago.  In the first, they drew four games and lost one, in the other they lost three and drew two.  The bad form saw them tumble from a Champions League position to fifth and the Europa League.

Still, with the margin for error they have it's hard to see them failing to reach Europe's big dance, especially when considering the form of their pursuers that are on the outside looking in.  Lazio has a record of 1-2-4 (W-D-L) over their last seven games.  Inter, after a scorching start, haven't won back-to-back games since early December, and since then are 3-4-4.  Fiorentina's early form was similarly impressive, but they're 2-1-5 since the winter break ended.

Meanwhile, the form of Milan has been top-notch, especially since the acquisition of Mario Balotelli at the end of the transfer window.  The rossoneri haven't lost since the last game before the winter break and dismantled Lazio 3-0 on Sunday to jump back into third place.  If they survive a brutal three-match stretch in April against Fiorentina, Napoli and Juventus, they won't need to win the Champions League to get back next season.  The biggest question for them is whether the expenditure of energy that their current Champions League spell—which, if they complete their potential upset of Barcelona will be going slightly longer than expected—will tax them too much given their depth problems.

With only three points separating No. 3 from Nos. 4, 5 and 6, any quick change in form in the stretch run will be costly in the race for the spot.  That race will likely be the most hotly contested in the league down the stretch.

Rounding out Europe

Besides Fiorentina, there are only two teams currently outside of the top five with a realistic shot at playing in European competition: Roma and Catania.

Roma are seventh, four points off of Inter's pace for fifth, with Catania a point behind in eighth.  Both teams have tough roads to make up the ground and qualify through the league.  Each have local Derbies and matches against red-hot Milan remaining on the schedule, and Catania must also visit both Juventus and Lazio.  They'll each have to jump more than one team in order to get to the top five.

Roma will have a lot to say about who gets into the Europa League—and how.  Next month Roma will carry a 2-1 edge into the second leg of the Coppa Italia semifinal against Inter.  Their potential finals opponent, Lazio, booked their place in January.  If Roma advances and Lazio keeps their place in the top-five, Roma will be ticketed to Europe whether they win or lose the final.

If the giallorossi fail to hold the lead, however, and both Lazio and Inter finish in the top five, that opens up a sixth place in the standings for the Europa League, giving Fiorentina, Catania and Roma—all currently separated by only three points—a better chance at getting in through the league.  If Inter advances, the last six matches of the season would end up an intense, all-out sprint between the three teams for the sixth place in the table.

The Race for Capocannoniere

After 27 games, the race for Italy's top scorer has boiled down to three men:

Edinson Cavani (Napoli)—18

Stephan El Shaarawy (AC Milan)—16

Antonio Di Natale (Udinese)—15

Despite losing key pieces of his supporting cast every year, Di Natale continues to defy age and score goals in bunches for Udinese.  However, he hasn't scored since a January 13 brace against Fiorentina, and he isn't going to get service of the same quality as the other two.

El Shaarawy will win the award at some point in his career, but it may not be this year.  Even with Mario Balotelli on hand, Milan had spread the goals around—Giampaolo Pazzini is a quiet fourth in the scoring list with 12.

Cavani, on the other hand, is Napoli's primary goalscorer, and no one else on the team comes close.  He's scored 27 times in all competitions.  No other Napoli player has reached double digits.

One may think that the Uruguayan is a clear favorite, but he hasn't scored a goal in the league since netting the decider in a 2-1 win against Parma on January 27.  Napoli's form has dipped lately, and El Shaarawy may have an opening to nip him in the remaining 11 games.  A lot depends on how much the 20-year-old plays in the league.  With Balotelli cup-tied and Milan set to potentially play a heavy European workload, Max Allegri may rest his young star for use in the Champions League.

The Relegation Battle Heats Up...maybe

To be honest, the relegation battle in Serie A is about as lukewarm as the championship race.  Palermo, Pescara and Siena (in ascending order) occupy the bottom three spots.  The clubs are all level on 21 points, with Siena placed closest to safety in 18th by virtue of their superior record in games played between the three.  Even if the Serie A used goal difference rather than head-to-head record as their first tiebreaker, the robur would be in the highest spot, their -12 being superior to Palermo's -17 (Pescara is thanking the soccer gods that head-to-head is the decider, their goal difference is a fantastically awful -34).

This race would be exponentially more exciting were it not for the six-point penalty that Siena was assessed at the beginning of the season in connection with the calcioscommesse match-fixing scandal.  If they had those six points, they would actually be outside of the drop zone with 27 points, one ahead of Genoa.  Those six points would also have sucked Chievo and Atalanta—who would have been three and four points ahead of the drop, respectively—into the relegation fight as well.  Cagliari would have been five points ahead with an outside chance of going down.

As it is now, the battle is between the three currently in the drop zone and Genoa, currently five points ahead of Siena thanks to that point penalty.  If any of the three bottom sides are going to make a move, this is the week.  Genoa plays host to a streaking AC Milan side at the Luigi Ferraris on Friday.  Pescara has a decent opportunity for points in Bergamo against Atalanta, and Siena and Palermo face off against each other at the Renzo Barbera.

The smart money is on Genoa falling to the rossoneri, which means that if any of the bottom teams win this week they put themselves a mere two points from safety.  If there is going to be a relegation battle over the Serie A's last 11 games, it's going to be initiated this weekend.  If none of the bottom three clubs are able to pull that close this week, the bottom of the table may end up looking as limp as the top down the stretch.