Thursday, March 5, 2009

Italian Serie A table, with refereeing errors corrected

You've got to love Italian football. For off-the-pitch entertainment I have no doubt it's the best in the world. There was many an occasion when I preferred to watch a TV programme showing fans' and personalities' comments and reactions to the unfolding of the match results, rather than the matches themselves.

Now, according to the Corriere della Sera, an "Observatory of Refereeing Errors" has issued a virtual Italian Serie A league table, as it would have been without refereeing errors. I suppose they assume that each penalty they deem should have been awarded would have resulted in a goal. And I can't imagine what compensation was allocated for attacking situations that were thwarted by wrong offside decisions.

According to the Osservatorio, instead of being runaway leaders Inter should in fact have 11 points less, which would place them in fourth position, behind Juventus in third place (they are actually second), Fiorentina who would be second, while crisis-ridden Milan should in fact be at the very top, enjoying five points more than they actually have at present.

Here is the full classification, as it should have been without refereeing errors, with differences from the actual points tally in brackets:

1: Milan 53 (+5)
2: Fiorentina 51 (+5)
3: Juventus 50 (-3)
4: Inter 49 (-11)
5: Genoa 46 (+1)
6: Roma 45 (+1)
7: Cagliari 40 (+2)
8: Udinese 40 (+6)
9: Palermo 39 (+3)
10: Napoli 39 (+4)
11: Lazio 39 (+1)
12: Sampdoria 36 (+4)
13: Atalanta 35 (-1)
14: Catania 33 (=)
15: Siena 31 (+3)
16: Torino 24 (=)
17: Bologna 23 (=)
18: Reggina 23 (+5)
19: Lecce 18 (-4)
20: Chievo 17 (-6)

Source: Corriere della Sera

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