Matches are never won on paper and if anything the reason football can be so entertaining is that shock results happen often, but looking ahead at the fixture list is just a natural phenomenon for fans of clubs in gauging the difficulty of a schedule.
La Gazzetta dello Sport reports that the month of February represents a great opportunity for Milan who want to relaunch their Scudetto bid even more strongly after Saturday’s derby win, while their rivals Inter, Napoli, Juve and Atalanta have more challenging and intense fixtures.
Inter have Roma in the Cup (tonight), then they are away to Napoli in the league (Saturday), they have the first leg of the round of 16 of the Champions League against Liverpool on February 16 and close the month with games against Sassuolo at San Siro and versus Genoa at the Ferraris.
Milan play in the Coppa Italia tomorrow against Lazio, then have three ‘winnable’ Serie A games: Sampdoria at San Siro (Sunday), a trip to Salernitana on February 19 and a home match against Udinese to end the month.
Napoli have Inter then play in the Europa League against Barcelona (17/2 and 24/2), with a trip to Cagliari in between (21 Febuary) and then they go to the Stadio Olimpico to face their former manager Maurizio Sarri and Lazio.
Juventus play on Thursday against Sassuolo in the Coppa Italia at home and then have a huge game away against Atalanta on Sunday. On Friday 18 there is the derby against Torino, then the Champions League against Villarreal (22 Febuary) and finally a league game in Empoli.
Atalanta have Fiorentina in the cup (Thursday), then Juve in Serie A (Sunday) and two Europa League matches against Olympiacos (17/2 and 24/2). Between those European games they play Fiorentina again (this time at the Franchi on 20/2) and close the month against Samp at home.
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