Keep calm, Italian friends, because Serie A is like a Benny Hill sketch

Keep calm, my Italian friends who are forced to follow Serie A, or you won’t make it to the end of the season alive. I’ve already raised a glass in these columns to the best innovation introduced this year in your unwatchable league: English-style refereeing and the underuse of VAR, which has finally made matches between Italian teams more entertaining. The aim is to scrap it altogether, given that when it does intervene, it does more harm than good – especially if it is used to make a female referee change her mind after she has miraculously got a decision spot on. From an external perspective, Serie A has so far resembled a Benny Hill sketch. For example, what is Lazio doing at the top, if it is true – as their fans claim – that the chairman is running the club into the ground? And how is it possible that the stadium remains half-empty? While it is often said that for a true fan ‘the result doesn’t matter’ and that supporting a club involves far more than the match itself, football remains a sport in which teams strive to win or at least give their all. Failing to attend matches even when the side is top of the table resembles a fan who refuses to drink beer simply to spite the person next to him at the pub.

Keep calm, because it is simply not plausible that, prior to the derby, Inter were so superior that they could afford to concede a one- or two-goal lead only to turn the result around, yet after the derby they are described as a group lacking any coherent strategy. And what about Amorim – deemed unable to read the game until Saturday afternoon, yet from Sunday evening onwards hailed as a tactical genius? And what is Frosinone’s striker—perhaps the most entertaining team in Italy at the moment—doing at the top of the goalscorers’ table? Colleagues, you had written Spalletti off against a resurgent Napoli, and now that Juventus have beaten Allegri, the roles in the narrative have been reversed. Take it easy with all the excitement over the thrashings of recent matchdays; you’re more hyped up than the typical progressive voter who wants Gualtieri and Mamdani to rule the world just because they posted a funny video on social media, and you risk getting hurt when you realise that the promises of the early rounds won’t be kept.

Certainly not tonight in Manchester, though, where Roma face the remnants of a team with a glorious past and a disgraceful present in the Champions League – and will win, just like everyone else who’s come up against them recently. United supporters, whose vocal cords have been strained by recent frustration, may require considerable recuperation before returning to full voice. Patience is advised: a single setback does not signal a broader pattern, and once normal service is resumed, the notion that Italian football has become a permanent source of comparison can be set aside. In the meantime, you can indulge yourselves by reading anecdotes about Antonelli’s childhood, interviews with his primary school teacher who recalls how little Kimi wrote faster than anyone else, and the neighbour who recounts the time the future Formula 1 world champion fixed his oil sump with nothing but the power of his mind.