Who has the most favorable schedule in Serie A? An analysis of the title and top-four competitions, including the possibility of an Inter vs. Napoli playoff for the Scudetto.

You would be hard-pressed to find a league in Europe with more on the line than Serie A as the Italian top-flight enters a mouthwatering final four weeks.

At the top of the standings, Napoli and Inter are locked in a Scudetto duel for the ages. Can Scott McTominay and co hold on for a stunning title triumph that would make Antonio Conte the first coach to win Serie A with three different teams?

Last week showed how the pressure of the run-in can tell, as Inter collapsed to three straight defeats between the league and Coppa Italia, dropping three points behind their Neapolitan rivals. However, they bounced back in style with a thrilling 3-3 UEFA Champions League semi-final draw in Barcelona.

Next up for Simone Inzaghi’s side is the must-win visit of Hellas Verona, live on TNT Sports and discovery+ on Saturday at 19:45 UK time.

But it’s not just the top of the table that you can’t take your eyes off. On Sunday night, Juventus’ trip to Bologna – also live on TNT Sports – could have a significant say in who comes out on top of a knife-edge battle for the top four.

Those two teams lead a pack of five, separated by just three points, along with Roma, Lazio, and Fiorentina, all chasing that coveted fourth and final Champions League spot.

With four games to go, it is a prime moment to see who has – on paper, at least – the easiest and trickiest remaining fixtures in the battles for the title and top four.

**Who has the best run-in in the title race?**

1. Napoli 74 pts (GD+29)
2. Inter 71 pts (GD+39)

The one benefit of Napoli’s poor title defence last season, which ended with a 10th-place finish, is that the absence of European football has left the Partenopei looking noticeably fresher than tiring rivals Inter at the business end of a long campaign.

However, both sides have been fallible this season, with eight draws apiece and nine defeats between them showing that consistency has been an ongoing issue for both.

So who do they have to come in their final four games?

**Napoli:** Lecce (A), Genoa (H), Parma (A), Cagliari (H)
**Inter:** Verona (H), Torino (A), Lazio (H), Como (A)

The average position of Napoli’s remaining opponents is 15th, while for Inter it is 11th. The reigning champions therefore have, on paper, a trickier task ahead of them.

What’s more, they have an additional game, as they host Barcelona at San Siro in the second leg of their UEFA Champions League semi-final on Tuesday, May 6 – live on TNT Sports.

Inter’s game against Lazio on Sunday, May 18, is the only match either of the title contenders has left against a team currently in the top half of the table. That could well be where the title is won or lost.

**Could there be a title play-off? How would it work?**

If Napoli and Inter finish the season level on points at the top of the table, the Scudetto will be decided by a play-off. The team with the better goal difference at the end of the campaign would host the one-off showdown.

As things stand, that would mean an Inter v Napoli play-off would be staged at the Stadio Giuseppe Meazza in Milan, as the Nerazzurri currently have a +39 total to Napoli’s +29.

Should a Scudetto play-off not be decided in 90 minutes, it would go directly to a penalty shoot-out without extra time. It’s quite a thought. This tiebreaker rule was only reintroduced in 2022, and there is just one precedent of the title being decided this way, when Bologna defeated Inter 2-0 in the 1963/64 season.

**Who has the best run-in in the Champions League race?**

3. Atalanta 65 pts
4. Juventus 62 pts
5. Bologna 61 pts
6. Roma 60 pts
7. Lazio 60 pts
8. Fiorentina 59 pts

Atalanta are in the strongest position to secure another crack at Europe’s premier club competition, but they must be careful of a ferociously competitive pack of teams jostling for places behind them.

It wasn’t long ago that La Dea looked like possible Scudetto contenders, but a dip in form at the wrong time instead left them looking over their shoulders rather than staring at the summit.

Juventus have moved into fourth place after Bologna failed to follow up a superb win over Inter when they were held to a goalless draw by Udinese on Monday. Igor Tudor, who replaced the sacked Thiago Motta on a deal to the end of the season in March, has taken the team into fourth place.

Roma are the form team of the league, with Claudio Ranieri leading his hometown club on an 18-match unbeaten run in the final act of his long, colourful coaching career. The capital club hosts Fiorentina in a straight European shoot-out on Sunday at 17:00.

Lazio stumbled on Monday when they had to fight back from two goals down to draw 2-2 with Parma, but the Romans have a big chance to make up ground this weekend when they go to second-bottom Empoli.

Only two of the teams have other distractions to bear in mind; Bologna face AC Milan in the Coppa Italia final on Wednesday, May 14, while Fiorentina will host Real Betis in the second leg of their UEFA Conference League semi-final next Thursday.

**So how do the top-four contenders’ league run-ins compare?**

**Atalanta:** Monza (A), Roma (H), Genoa (A), Parma (H)
**Juventus:** Bologna (A), Lazio (A), Udinese (H), Venezia (A)
**Bologna:** Juventus (H), Milan (A), Fiorentina (A), Genoa (H)
**Roma:** Fiorentina (H), Atalanta (A), Milan (H), Torino (A)
**Lazio:** Empoli (A), Juventus (H), Inter (A), Lecce (H)
**Fiorentina:** Roma (A), Venezia (A), Bologna (H), Udinese (A)

If we are again to measure the difficulty of each team’s remaining four fixtures by the current position of their opponents in the league table, we find that Atalanta have the best run-in and Roma have the worst.

The positional average of each team’s remaining opponents works out like this:

– Atalanta – 13.75
– Juventus – 10.5
– Bologna – 8.5
– Roma – 7.5
– Lazio – 10.5
– Fiorentina – 10.25

The ball seems to be in Atalanta’s court to tighten their grip on third place, while Roma and Bologna appear to have the biggest tasks on their hands to keep up.

Of course, league position only tells you so much. Many would argue that teams in positions of mid-table safety are preferable opposition at the tail end of the season than those fighting for survival, while Milan are certainly an example of a side that could easily put up more of a fight than their current ninth-place berth suggests.

All we can do is sit back with a box of popcorn and see how it all unfolds..

**What happens if teams finish level on points?**

The primary tiebreaker in Serie A is head-to-head. That means if two teams finish on the same number of points, the side with the better record over their two meetings in the 2024/25 season will finish in the higher league position.

If the head-to-head record is even, then overall goal difference is used, followed by goals scored. If there are three or more teams level on points, a ‘mini-table’ will form, taking into account the overall head-to-head results between the teams involved to create a ranking. If still even, the goal difference in those H2H games is taken into account, followed by the same hierarchy of tiebreakers listed above.