Battle for the title of top scorer
One of the few intrigues of the last rounds of the Italian football championship is the determination of the name of the top scorer. Until the last round, Ciro Immobile and Cristiano Ronaldo claimed the award, but in the end the Italian turned out to be a little more stable than his counterpart and took the lead. The Lazio forward made another step towards winning the trophy in the game against the modest Brescia, which has long lost the chances of maintaining a residence permit in Serie A.
Immobile became the protagonist of the 37th round match. At the beginning of the first half, he assisted Joaquin Correy, and eight minutes before the end of normal time he scored himself. Chiro converted heads-up and scored his 35th goal of the season. Thus, the Lazio forward became the record holder of Serie A for the number of goals per season among Italian footballers and stopped one step away from the best achievement in history. It is owned by Gonzalo Higuain, who scored 36 accurate shots in 2016.
Immobile not only created an excellent groundwork in the dispute with Ronaldo and got the opportunity to become the owner of the absolute championship record, but also took the lead in the dispute for the Golden Boot. Ciro has 70 points, which allowed him to bypass Robert Lewandowski of Bayern (68).
As for Ronaldo, he struck ten shots on goal, "Cagliari", but none of them reached the goal. Juventus sensationally lost 0-2, conceding both first-half goals in Serie A for the first time since August 2017. The last time this happened was against Genoa. Thus, the “islanders” interrupted their 19-match losing streak in the confrontation with the “old senior”. The last time they won in November 2009, they also scored two unanswered goals.
However, Federico Chiesa became the best sniper of the tour. The Fiorentina forward scored a hat-trick against Bologna and helped the team end a losing streak. The last time the Italian Violet player scored three times in one match was in 2014. Then Alberto Aquilani flashed with a similar rate of fire.
Fight for the fifth line
Unlike the representatives of the first four, Roma and Milan kept tournament motivation until the penultimate round. Although Stefano Pioli's wards were four points behind, they retained the theoretical chances for fifth place, which would give them a ticket to the Europa League group stage. For their part, the Rossoneri did their best to maintain the intrigue and defeated the rivals from Sampdoria away, winning the eighth match out of 12 after a pause.
The meeting ended with a score of 1: 4, and Zlatan Ibrahimovic became the main creator of success. The Swede scored already 3 minutes 22 seconds after the starting whistle and scored his fastest goal in a red and black T-shirt. However, the legendary striker did not stop there and subsequently not only assisted Hakan Chalhanoglu, but also upset Vladimir Falcone again. This allowed him to become the first player in history to score 50 goals for Milan and Inter in the Italian championship.
Chalhanoglu also scored an assist and recorded a significant achievement for himself. Thus, the Turk became the first Milan midfielder since May 2008 to score points on the goal + pass system in five games in a row. The last time the Brazilian Kaka did it.
As for the hosts, in the 78th minute they missed the penalty, but still managed to upset Gianluigi Donnarumma. For 19-year-old Norwegian Christopher Askildsen, this success was the first after moving to Genoa. But in the second stoppage minute, Rafael Leao interrupted a dry streak of five meetings and set the final score on the scoreboard.
However, Roma put an end to Milan's hopes to climb to the fifth line. Paulo Fonseca's charges prevailed over the Torino players and retained the lead at around four points. The teams scored five goals for two, with the first three in the net between the 14th and 23rd minutes. The winners included Chris Smalling, Amadou Diawara and Edin Dzeko. At the same time, the Bosnian became only the fourth player of the “wolves”, who made out 16 goals in three seasons. Rodolfo Volku, Pedro Manfredini and Amedeo Amadei obeyed a similar bar. In addition, with 106 accurate shots, the forward came in fourth on the list of top scorers in club history.
Fight for survival
In the basement of the standings "Genoa" and "Lecce" continued the battle for the salvation, 17th line. If successful, the Genoese could guarantee themselves the preservation of their residence permit in the top division of the country, but could not score a point in the confrontation with the rivals from Sassuolo. The black-greens left no chance for the guests and sent five unanswered goals into their goal. The double was marked by Francesco Caputo, with 21 goals strengthened on the fourth line in the dispute between the scorers. At the same time, Domenico Berardi, for the first time in his career, scored an assistant hat-trick in Serie A. Previously, he gave eight assists per game eight times, but was never marked with three.
The Salentians took advantage of the misfire of a direct competitor, beating opponents from Udinese in a foreign field. At the end of the first half, the teams exchanged accurate hits, and in the 81st minute, Gianluca Lapadula helped the guests to snatch precious three points and close the gap from the 17th team to one point. In the last round, both will meet with the strong middle peasants of Serie A. Lecce will fight Parma, and Genoa - Verona. It is noteworthy that in the first round, both lost to their future counterparts.