Serie A: Juventus vs. Lazio could be another one for the ages

Juventus take on Lazio on Monday in a game that could follow in the footsteps of other classic encounters between the two sides over the years.

While it may seem like a forgone conclusion that Juventus will once again win the Serie A title, the game Monday against Lazio could prove once again to be a battle for the ages.

This season, as everyone already knows, has been anything but normal. The season was halted back in March after the coronavirus pandemic forced the everything in the country, and in most of the world, to come to a stop.

The season resumed last month with Juventus ahead of Lazio by just a point. Now, with five matchdays left in the season, Juve have a six-point advantage over second-place Inter Milan, while Lazio have fallen to fourth. Atalanta are now third with 70 points. Should Lazio pull off an upset in Turin, the Rome-based club would still only have a remote shot at their first title in 20 years. They would, however, be doing Inter Milan a huge favor.

It was back in 2000 that Lazio stunned everyone by capturing the league, edging out Juventus on the very last day of the season. Lazio were celebrating their 100th anniversary that season and featured strikers Marcelo Salas and Simone Inzaghi.

The team was so stacked that year that they won the Coppa Italia as well, completing a rare double at a time when traditional powerhouses like Juventus, AC Milan and Inter Milan had once again been favored to win the scudetto.

That season, Lazio and Juventus played to a scoreless draw in November at the Stadio Olimpico in the nation’s capitol, only for Lazio to defeat the Old Lady in April 1-0 in Turin with only six matches left in the season.

It was on May 14 that Lazio clinched the title in dramatic style. A torrential rain had forced the suspension at halftime of Juventus’s match at Perugia, while Lazio’s 3-0 win over Reggina meant they had to wait another 45 minutes to see if they’d won the title.

When Juventus the game resumed after an hour (a decision made by famed referee Pierluigi Collina), it was Perugia’s Massimiliano Cappioli who scored after just four minutes. The score remained 1-0 and Lazio could celebrate just their second league title in history after finishing the season a point ahead of Juventus.

“I never thought it would be this beautiful,” Lazio manager Sven Goran Eriksson said at the time. “The other titles I won elsewhere in Europe cannot compare to this.”

Juve fans to this day complain that they game should not have resumed. Had the game been suspended, and replayed at a later date and with better weather, Juventus would have secured the points to finish in first.

This season, Lazio need the points, if anything, to try and finish at least second. A surging Inter and Atalanta could mean Lazio end the season out of the top four, which would result in missing out on next season’s Champions League.

We will never know whether Juventus could have won the league title back in 2000, but it has meant that Juve and Lazio have had an intense rivalry as a result over the past two decades.

The yo-yo nature of Lazio’s season could very well catch Juve by surprise when the sides meet in an empty Juventus Stadium. After a sluggish start, Lazio posted 50 points out of a possible 54 from October 20 to mid-March, nine more than Juventus.

In the process, they defeated Juventus 3-1 at home in league play last December, doing it again in the Italian SuperCup just a few weeks later by the same scoreline. Since league play resumed in June, Lazio have lost four out of seven matches. That poor run of form helped put Juventus on the path to another title and what would be first-year manager Maurizio Sarri’s first-ever scudetto.

Before Sarri, Cristiano Ronaldo and the team can break out the champagne, they will need to get past Lazio. Should Juve grab all three points, the scudetto race would effectively come to an end despite Atalanta’s current run.

Juventus, however, also got off to a slow start once the season returned this summer, losing the Coppa Italia final to Napoli and recently losing 4-2 to AC Milan (after squandering a 2-0 lead) and drawing Atalanta 2-2 (after being down 2-0). Juve tied Sassuolo 3-3 this past Wednesday in another goal-fest of a match.

Should Juve lose to Lazio, it may have to wait a few more weeks. Lazio is playing for pride at this point. Don’t underestimate them or this crazy finale to a season that should have ended in May, especially should a summer downpour drench the field come Monday.