We are down to the final 180 minutes of the 2024-25 season and three of the four spots in next season’s [Champions League](https://www.sbnation.com/champions-league) that Serie A will occupy have been settled. The fourth, however, is just as up in the air as it has been for much of the last few weeks and potentially months.
The difference between this week and last is that instead of [Juventus](https://www.blackwhitereadallover.com) seeing two other clubs on the same point total as themselves, it’s now just one. That’s as a result of Juve’s draw with Lazio in the Italian capital last Saturday and then Roma seeing their 19-game domestic unbeaten run coming to an end with a loss to Atalanta two days later in Bergamo.
It all adds up to Juventus still having the slightest bit of an inside track when it comes to Champions League qualification, sitting ahead of Lazio on 64 points thanks to goal differential. Roma are one point behind in sixth, with Coppa Italia final winners Bologna, Coppa Italia final losers AC Milan and Fiorentina rounding out the rest of the group.
Despite all the craziness of the last couple of weeks, there is still just five points between Juventus in fourth and Fiorentina in ninth.
The twist this weekend? Every contender for fourth place — as well as every game outside of Genoa-Atalanta — is going to be playing at the same time Sunday night.
In the same kind of fashion as the final day of the Champions League league phase, we get this added twist as well: All four of the games that have top four implications will be played at the same time this weekend with 8:45 p.m. (20:45 CEST) kickoff times. The live table is going to get a workout a whole heck of a lot just like we saw during the final day of the UCL league phase.
As we have done the previous couple of matchdays, we will go ahead and take a look at what the five (or maybe even six!) contenders for fourth place in Serie A are up to the coming weekend.
After back-to-back fixtures against teams they are directly competing for fourth place with, Juventus now get a slight reprieve when they host 12th-place Udinese who could very well be thinking of summer vacation plans that arrive after next weekend.
Then again, Udinese also probably wouldn’t mind playing a major role of spoiler in Juve’s Champions League qualification hopes.
This is the final game at Allianz Stadium for Igor Tudor’s squad this season. if Tudor will manage another game at the Allianz beyond May 2025 remains to be seen, but they have won all three of their home fixtures with the Croatian in charge after he replaced Thiago Motta in March.
A win for Juventus would mean, at the very least, they will enter the season finale against relegation-threatened Venezia next weekend with destiny in their hands.
Udinese are not in great form by any means. They’ve got just one win to their name since March 1, picking up five points over the course of their last nine games. They’re coming off a 2-1 loss to Monza, a team that had already been relegated and was previously on pace to be one of the lowest points tallies in the three-point era.
So who really knows what form of Udinese will actually show up — which could bode well for Juve even though they’re going into Sunday night incredibly shorthanded due to both injuries and suspensions.
Lazio at Inter Milan
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This is the only matchup that has implications on more than just who could potentially finish the season in the top four.
Inter enter a two-week stretch to end the month of May where they either can win both the Scudetto and the Champions League final ... or neither of the two big trophies that they set their sights on at the start of the 2024-25 season. The Serie A title hopes, especially, were thrown a big lifeline last weekend when Napoli were held to a draw by Genoa, with Patrick Vieira helping out his former club in a big way.
But they will be facing a Lazio squad that have their own big-time implications riding on this weekend’s results.
With the draw against Juventus last Saturday, Lazio now know they will need to finish ahead of the Bianconeri on points since the Turin giants hold the head-to-head tiebreaker if they end level like they are right now with two games to go. And like Juve, they will also be facing a relegation-threatened team next weekend that will be fighting for their Serie A lives, so the season finale is by no means a simple and straightforward kind of fixture.
For one weekend, though, Juventus will also be hoping that Inter pick up the win without a doubt.
AC Milan at Roma
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With a win over Atalanta this past Monday, Roma could have moved up into fourth place and become the odds-on favorite to qualify for the Champions League, taking a two-point advantage over Juve and Lazio into the penultimate weekend of the season.
However, the loss in Bergamo now means Claudio Ranieri’s squad — which saw their 19-game unbeaten run come to an end Monday night — are sitting in sixth and a point behind Juventus and Lazio rather than being the team the others are chasing.
We know Roma have been incredibly tough to beat since Ranieri returned to his beloved Roma in mid-November, but that’s been especially true when they’ve played at home. Since he was hired Nov. 13, Roma have the second-best home record in Serie A, just a point behind Bologna. Their only league loss with Ranieri at the helm came three weeks after he was hired against, ironically, the same Atalanta side that just put a dent in Roma’s charge toward a Champions League spot.
Milan split their back-to-back matchups against Bologna in Serie A and then the Coppa Italia final, losing midweek in Rome to cap what has been an ultimately massive disappointment of a season. If the Milan from the second half that came back to beat Bologna at San Siro last weekend, then they have a shot to hang with Roma. But, if it’s the Milan we saw in the Coppa Italia final, then it’s hard to see them picking up points in their second trip to Rome within the span of four days.
Bologna at Fiorentina
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Considering how tight things are from fourth down to seventh, it’s not out of the line of possibility to think that Bologna could make a jump over a club or two with three points if other results go their way.
It’s also safe to say that Fiorentina need much, much more help than just that.
But these are two teams separated by only two positions and three points in the standings that have two very different kinds of vibes around them coming off their most recent result.
Bologna have just one win in their last six Serie A fixtures, but they’re coming off a Coppa Italia win that delivered them their first trophy in the competition in 51 years. They are certainly going to be riding high after such a huge win over Milan in the Coppa final, which also took a big amount of the sting out of the loss at San Siro just a few days earlier.
Fiorentina, meanwhile, almost predictably lost to Venezia just four days after they were ousted from the Conference League in heartbreaking fashion by Real Betis at the Franchi. Sitting in ninth place and five points off fourth-place Juventus, La Viola are still mathematically alive for a top-four finish but in reality are just trying to keep any sort of European hopes alive this weekend.