The season was just beginning but some people were already thinking about its ending. “We need to get to safety,” said the Monza manager Raffaele Palladino. “Even if it’s on the last day of the season that would still be worth celebrating.”
His team had not even played that badly, losing 2-0 away to an Inter team who ended last season in a Champions League final. The Nerazzurri were superior throughout, yet the result was not settled until Lautaro Martínez bagged his second goal in the 75th minute. If Monza had reacted more sharply to Yann Sommer wafting a cross into the middle of his area just after half-time, it could have been a different story.
What would an opening weekend be, though, without a few knee-jerk reactions? Andrea Belotti’s two goals for Roma – after a full season without scoring any in Serie A – heralded the return of a striker who netted 26 times for Torino in 2016-17. Juventus’s 3-0 win over Udinese proved they are ready to win their first Scudetto in four years.
Watching Belotti on Sunday was indeed a joy: his purposeful movement and confident finishing during a 2-2 draw with Salernitana such a contrast with his anonymous first year in Rome. His most impressive goal might have been the additional one that was disallowed for offside at the start: a leap to control the ball at full-stretch on his right boot before finishing first-time off his left.
This felt like a flashback to a happier chapter. At the peak of his powers, Belotti was a punishing blend of athleticism and instincts: the kind of player who might not always get his first touch right but who could contort his body in an instant to execute an overhead kick if that was what he needed to get a ball across the line.
❤️🙏#RomaSalernitana | #SassuoloAtalanta pic.twitter.com/q4eXjLEqjy
— Lega Serie A (@SerieA) August 20, 2023
Can he really be the solution to Roma’s problems up front? Tammy Abraham is out until January and José Mourinho posed for a team photo with his arm around a non-existent striker at the end of his team’s training camp in the Algarve, a prod – light-hearted, he insists – at his bosses’ failure to bring in cover. Yet the manager had also defended Belotti this month, insisting “he is going to have a much more productive season’”. At 29, the player still has time on his side. Salernitana’s two goals, both of them brilliant, were scored by a 36-year-old Antonio Candreva.
Mourinho was absent from the dugout on Sunday, suspended for his criticisms of the referee Daniele Chiffi at the end of last season. Bruno Conti took his spot on the bench, but there were tributes paid as well to the former manager Carlo Mazzone, who passed away on Saturday at the age of 86.
Mazzone managed 11 teams through a record 795 Serie A games, including three seasons at Roma. Major silverware eluded him, yet this was the man who launched Francesco Totti’s career and who first adapted Andrea Pirlo from No 10 to deep-lying regista. Pep Guardiola, who played for Mazzone at Brescia, remembered him, as many others do, “like a father”.
A banner in the Stadio Olimpico’s Curva Sud on Sunday carried the message: “You don’t need to win to be remembered”. Minutes of silence and applause were held all across the country for a man whose most famous moment was not lifting a trophy but sprinting defiantly towards Atalanta supporters who had insulted him before his Brescia team came from 3-1 down to 3-3 in the derby.
At Juventus, they have long held to a different mantra: Giampiero Boniperti’s assertion that “winning is not an important thing, it’s the only thing that matters”. Two years removed from their last trophy, and excluded this season from European competition, the pressure is on the Bianconeri to mount a serious challenge for the Serie A title.
An underwhelming transfer campaign had not exactly fuelled enthusiasm. The addition of Timothy Weah from Lille was well received but other attempts to reinforce the attack have failed and a flirtation with Romelu Lukaku went down poorly. Ultras protested their club’s interest at the start of this month with a banner telling the Belgian to “Stay in Milan. We already have a reserve goalie.”
They did not look like a team that needed strengthening against Udinese on Sunday. Federico Chiesa started up front alongside Dusan Vlahovic and they dovetailed beautifully, the Serbian setting up the Italian for the opening goal in the second minute before scoring a penalty of his own. Adrien Rabiot added the third before half-time. It was hard to remember a Juventus team playing with such zip and attacking intent.
Afterwards, Massimiliano Allegri explained that this is where he sees Chiesa playing now – a centre-forward not a winger. “He needs to be a 14-16 goal player,” said the manager. “Sticking him out wide is a waste.”
Is this really the start of a new dawn for Juventus, or were Udinese just dreadful? Only time can give us real answers. For the Italian national team, though, as well as Juventus, the prospect of Chiesa finally developing into the world-class talent that we thought he might be during Euro 2020 – before a cruciate ligament tear knocked him off course – is tantalising indeed.
If there was a theme to this opening weekend, indeed, it might have been that of lost talent rediscovered. Together with Belotti and Chiesa, there was Charles De Ketelaere, who scored his first Serie A goal on his debut for Atalanta. He was Milan’s most expensive addition of the 2022 summer transfer window, joining for a fee close to €30m, but never found the net once in 32 games.
De Ketelaere began on the bench against Sassuolo but came on at half-time and almost scored within moments of the restart, heading over from close range. He subsequently hit the crossbar with a shot taken off the toes of teammate Gianluca Scamacca before finally breaking the deadlock. At first it appeared that another close-range header had been clawed out by Andrea Consigli, but replays showed the ball crossing the line.
Not that the weekend belonged only to these redemption stories. The stars of last season were quick to reassert themselves too. Lautaro bagged both goals in Inter’s win over Monza. Victor Osimhen scored twice in Napoli’s 3-1 win over Frosinone.
Injuries or unexpected transfers permitting, it is a safe bet that both men will near the top of Serie A’s scoring charts come the spring. Little else, though, feels certain at the start of a wide-open campaign. Palladino may already be thinking about the season’s end but, as a 2-1 win for Lecce over last season’s runners-up Lazio showed on Sunday night, there will be plenty of twists between now and then.
Serie A results
Frosinone 1-3 Napoli, Empoli 0-1 Verona, Genoa 1-4 Fiorentina, Inter 2-0 Monza, Sassuolo 0-2 Atalanta, Roma 2-2 Salernitana, Lecce 2-1 Lazio, Udinese 0-3 Juventus
