Vincent West
Dailysports's expert
Verona
Cremonese
On January 9, Marc'Antonio Bentegodi (Verona) will host the match of the 17th round of the Serie A, in which Verona will compete with Cremonese. The battle will start at 18:30 CET.
Verona
The club completely failed the start of the season. The team is so hopeless that a miracle is needed to overcome the crisis. The similar situation happened in 2021, after the departure of Ivan Jurich. But then the management found Igor Tudor, who, having started his job during the last championship, was able to raise “the Hellas” to the 9th place. One way or another, he also left the club, and that was the second time when the trick with the replacement failed. In the autumn, all hopes were connected with Bocchetti, but by November the results had been as eloquent as possible: 1 win and 5 points in 15 matches. In the struggle with Torino there had been a good chance to win, but, having been leading for a long time, the team missed the advantage due to Miranchuk's accurate long-range shot.
Cremonese
The team is perceived by the majority of football fans as Calcio's debutant. In fact, it has already had enough experience, having played in the Serie A for a decade and a half. And another question is its modest results; finally, the last relegation was more than continuous. Suddenly, the team jumped right up to the 2nd place of the Serie B last season. It is curious to understand that Pecchia, having achieved the higher mentioned results, decided to leave the club and appeared in Parma. Alvini, who had become the coach instead of the previous one, still could not win with his new wards in the championship until the very end of autumn, and only the presence of completely hopeless outsiders allowed the newcomer with 7 draws and 8 defeats to move to the 18th place by Christmas. After the pause, the team tried to do its best in the game with Juventus: that was possible for a pretty long time, but still the team conceded after Milik's strike – he scored in the 91st minute of the match.
The statistics of head-to-head matches
The last time the sides had head-to-head matches was in 2018/2019. Then they played twice in the Serie B, as well as in the cup: the score was one and the same all the time – a 1-1 draw after the regular time.
Predictions
Bookmakers consider Verona to be the favourite of the battle. It got in shape, and Cremonese burnt a lot of energy in the match against Juventus (taking into account that the game was lost). We recommend betting on “the Mastiffs” who will win in the home match (odd: 2.04).
