Summary: Italian football jumps into the break with some verdicts and suspicions cemented, but there are more than enough surprises and wildcards in store as the transfer market opens and second half performances will dictate what happens to the three coveted Champions League spots as Milan continues its painful descent into also-ran status and Fiorentina looks to disrupt what could be Roma and Napoli designs for Europe. To discuss those matters and a supercharged one versus two battle that tops off the calendar in January is Italian football commentator Owen Neilson to help gauge what transpired in the first half of the season and how the transfer market has buoyed the contenders and shredded the 2013-14 campaigns for two Milan giants who are separated by 12 points but share similar symptoms in their decisions. We begin with Rudi Garcia and Roma who have sustained the body blow of losing Francesco Totti yet remained undefeated and stingy at the back, while gauging their prospects against a Juventus team intent on delivering three consecutive Scudetti now that the Champions League fallout has somewhat diminished as Antonio Conte has put the rest of Serie A in a headlock. We examine the Tevez and Llorente buys through that prism of Europe and look beneath the numbers year over year in the league to determine if those transfers measure up in net effect or whether the true answer lies in the slow start to the overall campaign, good enough to secure points in the league yet damaging in a competition like the Champions League. We also explore the cruel fate for Napoli in year one under Rafa Benitez, with 12 points in their Group of Death but sent packing nonetheless, and that is where we settle on the remarkable run for Giuseppe Rossi who has only just begun to round into form after a double knee surgery to become capocannoniere at the break. Then we turn to the matter of Lazio, Inter and Milan who could find themselves in real trouble in the second half of the season, a self-inflicted fate borne from seasons of poor transfer decisions and massive questions about managers and/or transfers that went unaddressed or look to complicate 2014 even further. We also venture into the surprise packages in Verona and Torino who are on pace to lock their safety quite early and then close on the matter of Serie B where another Zamparini explosion in Palermo over red cards and his conspiracy theories deliver even more color to a second division race where Empoli finds itself edging the Rosanero as we head into January. Never a dull moment in calcio and the league looks filled with intrigue, disaster and more offensive fireworks once the season resumes.
