Two home-and-home playoffs will be disputed this week to determine which teams will occupy final spots in next year's Serie A and Serie B. Both playoffs begin with the first leg on Wednesday. Serie A, 1st leg, Wed June 16 Perugia vs Fiorenina Serie B, 1st leg, Wed June 16 Bari vs Venezia Serie B, 2nd leg, Sat June 19 Venezia vs Bari Serie A, 2nd leg, Sun June 20 Fiorentina vs Perugia No word on whether any of these games will be televised.
What with Euro2004 going on, I don't think there is any TV or radio coverage of either of these playoffs which begin today. I'm trying to find a site that might be having some sort of live updates. Team sites, perhaps.
Could you post a direct link or else post the updates here. I'd rather not see the results of the Euro games if I can help it ... although canzano sort of took care of that for me in another thread.
At the end of the first half Fiorentina holds a 1-0 lead on a goal by Fantini in the 10th minute. Conventional wisdom has Fiorentina winning this playoff, and with an away goal under their belts already, it could be coming true. Cue Gaucci whining about a conspiracy.
Bari is up 1-0 with a goal by Bruno in the 13' of the second half. Fiorentina maintains it's 1-0 lead in the 2nd half.
The results are final Perugia 0 Fiorentina 1 Bari 1 Venezia 0 BTW, in the latter case, away goals are NOT being used as a tie-breaker. If Venezia wins by 1 goal in the return leg, they will remain in Serie B by virtue of finishing higher in the final standings.
Word is that Perugia was not very please with the ref (what's new?) and that Ravanelli had a goal disallowed.
Great win for Fiorentina. If they get back to Serie A I think Batigol is coming back! Hopefully they can pull off the second leg. Was this a home victory or an away victory? I think it was away but if anyone knows just inform me.
*sob* *sniff* *shudder* what was the call? offsides? If Perugia wins the next one 1-0 and it ends up tie, then they stay in A???
No, the tie-breaker for Fiorentina/Perugia is away goals, followed by silver goal overtimes, followed by PKs.
Hmmm, I just read the regulations at lega-calcio.it, but perhaps i read them incorrectly. They definitely mentioned goals "in trasferta", but I suppose they might've said they WEREN'T using them. I'll have to recheck.
Here are the regulations: http://www.lega-calcio.it/comun/0304/cu390.pdf I've re-read it, and it still seems to me that away goals will be used as the first tie-breaker. Not in the case of Venezia-Bari, however. If they are tied, Venezia wins.
The Fiorentina-Perugia result (1-1, Fiorentina wins 2-1 on aggregate) was posted in another thread. Venezia won the Serie B play-out, beating Bari 2-0. The second goal was scored in the 94th minute. I thought that 1-0 was enough for Venezia anyway, but it sounds like there may have been an overtime first and the standings tiebreaker would only have used instead of PKs. http://www.channel4.com/sport/football_italia/jun19j.html