What a difference a week can make in football. Take Catania and Sampdoria as examples.
Catania trounced Sicily rivals Palermo 4-0 on Day 26 only to be hammered 0-3 at home to modest Siena in their next match on Sunday.
Sampdoria were knocked out of the UEFA Cup by unknowns Metalist but regrouped to beat Milan (2-1) in the league and Inter (3-0) in the Coppa Italia semi-finals first leg only to suffer a heavy 0-3 setback away to relegation-battlers Bologna last weekend.
Fiorentina's 0-2 home upset to Palermo was also a shock result on Sunday not to mention Napoli's slump of late. After an excellent first round, Napoli cannot find their feet and fell off the wayside.
There are 11 fixtures to go for the end of the season and so much is still up for grabs.
The scudetto issue is now a two-horse race between defending champions Inter and nearest pursuers Juventus. At this stage, however, Inter, buoyed by a cushion seven-point lead at the top, are favourites to retain the title.
We'll have a clear indication next month when the clash Juve-Inter will be played in Turin.
Milan, with David Beckham at the side until the end of the season but out of the reckoning in all competitions, will have to focus on a third-place finish in the final standings.
Given their non-participation in the Champions League and early exits from the Coppa Italia and UEFA Cup, this can easily be described as another disappointing campaign for Carlo Ancelotti and his ailing side.
There is huge competition for the last-remaining Champions League spot involving three teams, Fiorentina, Genoa and Roma, the latter still in the running in the Champions League.
As things stand today, Cesare Prandelli's Fiorentina are fourth with a slim one-point lead over the other two contenders.
All three have not been particularly consistent lately and this makes it even more difficult to predict who will make a top-four finish come May. Next month's Fiorentina-Roma could be decisive but if all three sides continue to drop points, the European Cup berth could surprisingly go elsewhere.
Back-to-form Lazio can have their own say for the fourth spot.
Delio Rossi's side have shown remarkable progress lately but they are still five points adrift of Fiorentina.
It is likely that two of the teams that will not make a top-four finish between Fiorentina, Genoa, Roma and Lazio, will eventually qualify for the UEFA Cup.
In Lazio's case, if they fail in this regard, they can still play in Europe via the Coppa Italia with an impending semi-final return leg against Juventus coming up next month.
By now, Cagliari, Palermo, Udinese, Napoli, Atalanta, Catania, Sampdoria and Siena all look safe from relegation.
That restricts the relegation zone to just five teams - Bologna, Torino, Chievo, Lecce and Reggina. Three of them will go down.
Serie A statistics
1st defeat for Torino after a run of six draws and a win. Last Saturday, the Maroons were agonisingly floored by a late Giorgio Chiellini goal for Juventus. The last drawn result in a derby which Torino hosted was on February 24, 2002 (2-2). For the record, Torino's last 'home' win over Juve dates back to January 25, 1995 (3-2). Juve are now unbeaten in their last five outings (four wins and a draw).
2 players, Filippo Inzaghi (Milan) and Marco Di Vaio (Bologna), struck a hat-trick each to help their sides to identical 3-0 home wins against Atalanta and Sampdoria respectively. Di Vaio consolidated his lead in the scorers' list with 19 goals, with Alberto Gilardino (Fiorentina), Zlatan Ibrahimovic (Inter) and Diego Milito (Genoa) being his nearest pursuers with 15 goals each.
4 defeats and a draw - Bologna's worst run this season - came to an end on Sunday courtesy of a 3-0 victory over Sampdoria. This was Bologna's first home win over the Blucerchiati since October 13, 1996 (2-1) and Samp's first defeat after a positive six-match league run (three wins and three draws). Roma came from a goal down to share the spoils with Udinese 1-1 at home. This was Roma's third successive game without defeat (one win and back-to-back draws with Inter and Udinese).
5 games without a win (four successive defeats and a draw) for struggling Lecce as the southerners could not go beyond a 0-0 home draw with bottom side Reggina. Lecce have not scored a single goal since Jose Castillo's 55th minute winner versus Siena on February 1. On Monday, coach Mario Beretta was sacked and replaced by Luigi De Canio.
9 winless games in a row (two draws and seven defeats) have seen Napoli slip into oblivion. On Sunday, they conceded two second-half goals to go down to Lazio for the first time in almost eight years. After a dark patch, Lazio have lately hit top form as they recorded a draw and three straight wins from their last four outings.
20 goals were scored on the 27th day: eight coming from the hosts and the remaining 12 from the visitors. Bologna and Milan recorded the only two home wins of the weekend while Lecce and Reggina figured in the only goalless draw. Total number of goals scored so far is 654. Tommaso Rocchi grabbed the only brace of the day at Napoli. No penalties were awarded by referees. Roma midfielder Daniele De Rossi was the only red-carded player.