Opinion: What’s changed in the race for Europe?

The homestretch of the season is well and truly here.

In the race for the European spots, not much clarity came about this weekend.

The top two continued to win, with Gianluigi Buffon reaching a historic clean-sheet milestone as Juventus swept aside eternal rivals Torino and Gonzalo Higuain shooting down a threatening Genoa side.

The top two spots entered the weekend separated by three points, both won, and the duo left the weekend with the same gap.

The following three – Roma, Fiorentina, and Inter- similarly avoided any upward or downward movement, but all drew to maintain their same shape.

The top 6 thus looks like the following:

1. Juventus: 70 points
2. Napoli: 67 points
3. Roma: 60 points
4. Fiorentina: 55 points
5. Inter: 55 points
6. Milan: 49 point

The race for third, then, will all come down to the final eight games that those three sides face.

For Roma, this will entail the added nuance of keeping in mind the fact that Luciano Spalletti’s men hold the head-to-head tiebreaker against Fiorentina but not against Inter - finishing level on points with Sousa’s men in third sees Roma in the Champions League qualifier, but if the Giallorossi and Mancini’s men tie on points, it’s the Milan team who get the higher spot in the table.

Those final eight games, in short, are going to be fascinating.

Each of the three teams will face a team above them in the table just once and each has exactly four home matches and four away matches.

The nuance will be in the nature of the sides. Roma, for example, will play sides that are currently averaging a 9.25 position in the table; two of the teams are ones playing for a Champions League position (Napoli and Milan, though by the final day of the season when the latter is faced, the spots may well be decided already), and then of course there’s the impending derby.

Fiorentina’s schedule looks slightly easier on paper, with opponents averaging 10.63 in the table, but they have to host Juve and play a variety of relegation candidates desperate for points, such as Sampdoria, Udinese, and Palermo.

Inter, meanwhile, have a schedule with the lowest averaging teams, 11th in the table, but also have to face Mauricio Sarri’s men, Roma’s crosstown rivals and high-flying Sassuolo.

Conventional wisdom might suggest that the deeper the season goes, the better it is to play sides comfortably mid-table.

The ones at the bottom need points to avoid the drop; the ones at the top are chasing Europe and trophies.

This gets tricky to delineate in Serie A currently because of the fine margins at the bottom and the sheer number of teams on similar points.

Consider, for example, that two successive wins would take Palermo out of the final relegation spot and potentially up to 13th – that indicates there are five teams within six points of being relegated.

Subtracting those yields a tentative position of 12, with Genoa, as the team closest to the bottom that probably has no genuine concern of being relegation: that’s the bottom of midtable.

At the top is the side just out of realistic contention of the Europa League-yeilding fifth place, which looks to be Sassuolo in 7th.

Roma play three of these sides in the final eight matches; Inter, four; and Fiorentina, four.

So which adversaries may well decide how the top six positions pan out? Roma and Inter, curiously enough, face four of the same teams in their run-ins: Lazio, hosting Napoli, away at Genoa, and at home to Torino.

Match Inter’s record in those four matches and Roma may well do enough to ensure that they finish third at the minimum.