Udinese’s victory in Monza in the postponement last Monday closed the fifteenth matchday of Serie A with a ranking that sees theEmpoli still on the left, even ahead of teams like Roma and Turin, built for very different goals. In fact, with 4 wins and 7 draws, the Azzurri scored 19 points, a haul that was honestly unthinkable on the eve but fully deserved for what they showed on the pitch.
In these first four months of the championship the team of D’Aversa has always remained largely distant from relegation zonenow seven points away. An important margin, but one that certainly shouldn’t make Ismajli and his companions lower their guard.
Of course, 19 points in the bag at the beginning of December is a really good haul, so much so that in its history in the top category Empoli has only done better on three occasions: the 21 points achieved in the 2002-03 and 2015-16 seasons with them on the bench respectively Silvio Baldini and Marco Giampaolo and the 20 reached in 2021-22 with Aurelio Andreazzoli at the helm. In none of the three cases, however, in terms of position in the standings has the Italian club gone beyond tenth place this year, while as regards the advantage over the relegation zone in 2021-22 it was 10 points and in 2002- 03 of 9, the same 7 as this year with Giampaolo at the helm.
By reaching 19, Empoli also equaled that achieved by Gigi Cagni’s team after the same number of games in 2006-07, a season which the Azzurri then closed in seventh place with 54 points (record in Serie A), when they had a margin by 9 points on the red zone. On average in the last ten championships the survival quota has fluctuated between 36 and 38 points, which means that D’Aversa’s team is more or less halfway done with 4 days left to go in the first round.
Even considering the current average of points for the Azzurri, 1.26 per game, Empoli are actually halfway through their journey so much so that if they were to maintain this pace they could reach their goal two months early.
Naturally there is still a second round to experience, where traditionally another championship starts with teams that perhaps thanks to the winter transfer market are able to sort things out and begin a slow but gradual ascent, see Empoli itself last year, while others they can enter a negative loop of results from which it then becomes difficult to escape, as happened for example to Frosinone last season. However, looking at this Empoli, solid, organized and lively, it is difficult to be pessimistic at this moment.
Grassi and his companions have certainly demonstrated that they have all it takes to achieve the objective they have set themselves with the necessary serenity. Even today, with the standings in hand, Empoli could even target seventh place Milan, just 3 points away. In fact, the Azzurri are almost exactly halfway between the relegation zone (7 points) and the one that gives access to Europe which counts the most (8 points). Proof that this Empoli is no longer a surprise but a beautiful reality. And then dreaming costs nothing, although in the blue environment everyone is very clear about their own dimension.
