When it comes to the final four weeks of the 2024-25 Serie A season, there are two headline-grabbing battles at the top of the standings taking place. There is, of course, the battle between Napoli and reigning champions Inter Milan for the Scudetto, but the much more Juventus-relevant one has to do with the race to finish in the top four.
It has been a very tight logjam for weeks now, but entering the month of May, it is reaching its very crowded apex.
Juventus have the luxury of currently being the team that everybody else is chasing to try and get into the top four. The problem is, there isn’t just one or two other teams that are trying to leapfrog Juve in the standings. Instead, there is so little distance between Juve in fourth place and Fiorentina down in eighth that any one of those five teams have a shot at finishing in one of Italy’s four Champions League qualification positions.
Juventus sit in fourth on 62 points. Then come Bologna in fifth with 61 points. Roma and Lazio are sixth and seventh, respectively, both with 60 points. Fiorentina, rounding out the final spot of this five-team logjam is definitely not out of things despite being in eighth and on 59 points.
For simplicity reasons, we will keep things to what’s going on between fourth place and eighth place. So, if you’re hoping to hear about Atalanta a little bit, you’re out of luck. (Plus, they’re playing Monza this weekend, so if they don’t beat what could be one of the worst teams statistically in Serie A that’s on the brink of relegation, I don’t know what to say.)
So, let me repeat: That’s five teams separated by a grand total of … three points.
That’s not much room between fourth place and eighth. And there’s going to be plenty of movement over the next four weekends due to the fact that these clubs are so tightly packed.
As we will do for the final four matchdays of the 2024-25 season, we will go ahead and take a look at what the five contenders for fourth place in Serie A are up to the coming weekend. It just so happens that this weekend, the first one in the month of May,
Juventus at Bologna, Sunday, 20:45 CEST
The final fixture of Sunday’s schedule is obviously the one we’re the most interested since one half of it is the club we root for every weekend nine months out of the year.
It’s a matchup that we’ve had circled on the schedule for weeks now — and especially so as Bologna have only increasingly shown that they are a serious contender for the top four. It was looked at as a decisive kind of fixture when Thiago Motta was still manager, and it’s even more the case now that Tudor is in charge.
With Juventus’ win over last-place Monza and Bologna being held to a draw by Udinese just 24 hours later, the two teams enter Matchday 35 having flip-flopped in the standings after Bologna occupied a hold on fourth place for a good portion of the last couple of months.
Lining up against a mid-table team like Udinese was, at least on paper, a bit of a reprieve for Bologna after facing all three members of the top three — Napoli, Atalanta and then finally Inter — over the previous three matchdays. Bologna won just one of those games against to-three opposition, claiming a stoppage-time win over Inter thanks to Riccardo Orsolini’s acrobatic game-winner two weeks ago.
After facing Juventus this weekend, Bologna still has to play AC Milan and Fiorentina before wrapping up the season against a Genoa team — who currently sit comfortably in 13th place — that will likely have very little to play for.
Fiorentina at Roma: Sunday, 18:00 CEST
Another head-to-head matchup between two clubs fighting for a spot in the top four.
Roma’s red-hot form under Claudio Ranieri hasn’t slowed down since they recorded a 1-1 draw with Juventus during the first weekend of April, allowing them to become an even more serious contender for a top four finish. They have also played a big part in the Scudetto race recently, recording a 1-0 win over Inter at the San Siro last weekend — a result that allowed Napoli to leapfrog the defending champs and take over first place.
Roma’s recent league form is something to behold: In their last seven Serie A fixtures, they’ve won five and recorded two draws (against Juve and Lazio). Over those seven game,s they’ve scored one goal in each of them. So while it’s not a high-scoring output, Ranieri’s squad continues to pick up points pretty much every time they face Serie A opposition.
Fiorentina will have to try and get points against Serie A’s most in-form squad on short rest due to their involvement in the first leg of the UEFA Conference League semifinal against Real Betis.
After their dip in form during the winter months, Raffaele Palladino has been able to get things going in a better direction over the last six weeks. La Viola entered Thursday night’s game against Real Betis — one in which they fell down by a goal early — unbeaten in their last nine games in all competitions, including back-to-back wins over Cagliari and Empoli in Serie A.
That streak wasn’t extended against Betis, with Fiorentina’s late rally attempt coming up short in a 2-1 loss.
Lazio at Empoli: Sunday, 12:30 CEST
The lunchtime kickoff will give us the first chance at seeing how the rest of the standings in the race for fourth place could look coming out of the weekend.
Lazio, who have just two wins in their last five and also were ousted from the Europa League quarterfinals two weeks ago, have the easiest matchup of the five teams competing for fourth place against an Empoli that currently sit in 19th place and two points off potential safety from relegation.
Much like Juventus, Lazio spent the last week seeing first-hand what Parma can do under new manager Cristian Chivu, who has his team on a seven-game run without a loss as they themselves look to avoid relegation. Lazio fell behind 2-0 at the Stadio Olimpico — where they will host Juventus next weekend — only to score twice within a five-minute span to pull even at 2-all late in the second half.
Much like Fiorentina, Lazio are pretty much in must-win mode considering they’re toward the back of the five-team logjam. And with Juve and then Inter on the schedule following their trip to Tuscany this weekend, this will be one of their last very winnable games this season.
