Udinese 0-1 Parma: Serie A Match Report

Udinese 0-1 Parma took its only goal from the second half. Goalless at the interval, 0-1 after it, and an away win for a side who had not won in four and had just been beaten 0-2 at home by Cremonese.

Udinese were 11th on 43 points from 32 matches with a goal difference of -4, in the safest part of the lower half and coming off the most eye-catching result of their season: a 3-0 at Milan. Before that they had drawn 0-0 with Como, won 2-0 at Genoa, lost 0-1 at home to Juventus and drawn 2-2 at Atalanta. Two goals conceded in their previous three.

Parma were 14th on 36 with -17, seven points behind their hosts and nine above the bottom three. Their run was the poorest of any side in the upper reaches of the lower half: 0-0 at Fiorentina, 1-4 at Torino, 0-2 at home to Cremonese, 1-1 at Lazio, 1-1 with Napoli. One goal or none in four of the five. Udinese had won the reverse fixture 2-0 in Parma in November.

Parma moved to 39 points and a goal difference of -16, drawing level with Genoa and putting twelve points between themselves and the relegation places with five rounds to go. For a club that had lost 1-4 and 0-2 inside the previous month, a clean sheet away from home was the more valuable half of the result.

Udinese stayed on 43 with the difference falling to -5. Their position was static and unthreatened, and the defeat cost them nothing beyond the round. What it did do is interrupt a defensive run that had been the best part of their spring — three matches, two goals conceded, one of them a 3-0 win at Milan — and replace it with a home blank. Seven points had separated them at kick-off; four did afterwards, which changes nothing for either but does describe who had the better month.

Our pre-match call was Udinese Win at 1.95. It lost, and 1.95 was a fair price for a fixture that was closer than the table implied. The case was Udinese's 3-0 at Milan and Parma's four matches without a win; the counter-argument, which we did not weight, was that Parma's poor run had been mostly draws and narrow results rather than collapses, and that both of their previous two had finished 1-1 against sides above them. A team drawing with Lazio and Napoli is not a team without a defence. Ours was the wrong read of a match that produced one goal. Verdict: lost