Serie A table and results, matchday 2: Roma on eight scored and none conceded, Fiorentina rock bottom
Ten games, twenty-five goals, six teams on maximum points and a Fiorentina still yet to score. Every result, the updated table, the race for top scorer, and how the thirty calls we published before kick-off actually went.
The second round of Serie A closed on Monday night and left a table already split in two. Six teams have six points from six, seven have not moved off zero. Almost nobody sits in between. Twenty-five goals in ten games, two and a half per match: sides are scoring, but rarely a lot in the same fixture.
Every matchday 2 result
Friday. Milan 2-0 Venezia got things going: Ramos opened, an own goal made it two. Milan are two from two, Venezia still have neither a point nor a goal.
Saturday. The shock of the round came at the Franchi: Fiorentina 0-3 Frosinone, Bracaglia and a Raimondo brace. Fiorentina drop to last without having scored in the league, while newly promoted Frosinone take their first win, away from home.
Elsewhere: Monza 2-3 Udinese, the most open game of the weekend, settled by Piotrowski, Kamara and Ekkelenkamp for Udinese with Colpani and Varela replying for Monza; Sassuolo 2-1 Torino through Volpato and Berardi, with Torino pulling one back but still on zero; and Juventus 2-0 Parma, Gonzalez and Koopmeiners keeping Juventus at the top.
Sunday. Napoli slipped up: Napoli 1-2 Como, Hojlund with the home goal, Baturina and Douvikas turning it around for Como. Narrow wins for Lazio and Inter: Lazio 1-0 Genoa through Frattesi, Cagliari 0-1 Inter through Calhanoglu.
Monday. The two late games did not change the top but redrew it. Roma swept Lecce aside in Lecce 0-4 Roma, a Donyell Malen double plus Soulé and Mora. And Atalanta beat Bologna in Atalanta 1-0 Bologna, Samardzic scoring in the 96th minute.
The table after two rounds
# | Team | Pts | P | W | D | L | GF | GA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Roma | 6 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 8 | 0 |
2 | Inter | 6 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 1 |
3 | Milan | 6 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 1 |
4 | Juventus | 6 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 0 |
5 | Atalanta | 6 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 1 |
6 | Lazio | 6 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 |
7 | Udinese | 4 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 4 | 3 |
8 | Como | 4 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 2 |
9 | Frosinone | 3 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 1 |
10 | Napoli | 3 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 2 |
11 | Sassuolo | 3 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 3 |
12 | Cagliari | 3 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
13 | Lecce | 3 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 4 |
14 | Torino | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 4 |
15 | Bologna | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 2 |
16 | Genoa | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 3 |
17 | Parma | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 3 |
18 | Monza | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 3 | 7 |
19 | Venezia | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 4 |
20 | Fiorentina | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 7 |
Two things stand out in these standings. Roma's goal difference reads eight to nil across a hundred and eighty minutes of league football. At the bottom the problem runs exactly the other way: Fiorentina and Venezia have yet to score, and neither have Bologna.
The race for top scorer
Malen is already clear at the top with five, twice as many as anyone else. Behind him, on two, a crowded group: Calhanoglu, Frattesi, Douvikas, Kamara, Raimondo and Varela.
How our analysis held up
Before kick-off we published our read on all ten fixtures. Here is the round with nothing taken out: thirty calls published, twenty-six correct, or 86.7 per cent. Ten were on matches and nine landed; twenty were on individual players and seventeen landed.
The single miss on the matches was Monza vs Udinese: we expected fewer than three and a half goals and five arrived. It was the most open game of the round and the only one above four goals, so the error sits entirely there. In the other nine the reading held, including the two Monday games that finished one wide open and one desperately tight.
The player calls
Seventeen from twenty. The best of them was Malen at Lecce: we called at least two shots on target, he beat that and scored twice. Douvikas at the Maradona also came in, as did Pio Esposito at Cagliari, Zaccagni for Lazio, and Ekkelenkamp, who added a goal to the call.
The three that failed each deserve a line. Busio never got a shot away at San Siro. Baldanzi did not test the goalkeeper at the Olimpico. And then there is McTominay, who went off during Napoli vs Como: our call needed at least one shot and it never came, but the reason is the one we covered separately, namely the injury that has led to surgery. A call built on a player's numbers cannot survive that player leaving the pitch, and that is a limit of the method rather than bad luck.
Our season verdicts, two rounds in
On 23 August we put nine season verdicts in writing. Two rounds is almost nothing, but it is worth looking now that the first numbers exist.
The best placed is top scorer: we picked Malen, and he leads with five. The flop call holds too, where we named Bologna, still on zero points and zero goals. Pio Esposito, our MVP pick, has started with Inter on maximum points.
Two are already in trouble, and it is only fair to say so. We had Frosinone among the relegated and their manager as the first to be sacked: Frosinone won 3-0 away at Fiorentina and sit ninth. And we named Venezia as the surprise of the season: they are nineteenth with no points and no goals. Neither verdict is decided after a hundred and eighty minutes, but for now both are running the other way.
The full picture of every settled call, one by one and filterable by period, is in the results history: we are currently at 84.6 per cent across 8,141 completed calls.
Serie A returns on 5 September. Our read on the coming fixtures stays updated until kick-off on the Serie A page, and the individual player calls are in the Player Predictions section.
