Parma and Monza Share the Points at the Bottom of Serie A

A bottom-of-the-table derby ended the way these clashes usually do: with no winner. Parma drew 1-1 with Monza at the Ennio Tardini, in a Serie A match where neither side managed to pull away from the relegation zone.

Monza took the lead in the 37th minute with a stunning strike from Jay Robinson, who fired a shot from outside the box that curled into the right side of the net after an assist from Ricardo Mangas. Before that goal, Parma had already had chances of their own, with a shot from Diego Carlos that flew over the bar and a header from El Bilal Touré off a corner that narrowly missed the target. But it was Monza who found the net first, and they took that lead into the break.

The second half opened with Parma searching for a way back, and the home manager made three substitutions right at halftime. The gamble paid off quickly: in the 59th minute, Simone Lontani, who had just come on minutes earlier, poked home the equalizer from the center of the box with a shot that found the right side of the goal, following a rebound the Monza goalkeeper couldn't fully control on the previous play. It finished 1-1.

With the result set, the match turned into an exchange of blows without a cutting edge. Andrea Colpani tried his luck with his left foot moments after coming on and forced a good save from the goalkeeper, Eddy Kouadio headed a shot on goal off a cross, and El Bilal Touré had another chance for Parma, but neither team found the second goal that would have changed the story.

Dominance That Didn't Translate Into More Goals

The numbers make clear that Monza was the team that created more, even if it wasn't enough to win. The estimated xG (an in-house metric calculated from where shots were taken) gives Monza 2.33 against just 0.89 for Parma, a gap explained by the five big chances the visitors had compared to just one for the home side.

Monza was sharper on the ball, completed more passes and created more clear-cut chances, but Parma held firm defensively and made the most of its one big opportunity to level the score. Beforehand, our projection gave Parma a 36% chance of winning, 33% for a draw and 31% for Monza, with an expected total of 2.1 goals. The final result, a 1-1 draw, ended up lining up fairly well with that forecast, even though the balance of chances during the match was much more even than the shot count suggests.

What the Point Means

The draw doesn't do much for either side. In the standings, Parma stays in 16th place with 1 point from 3 games played, while Monza sits one spot lower, in 17th, also with 1 point but with a worse goal difference. Both teams share the same rough start to the season: no wins, one draw and two losses each heading into this match. The game also had its share of cards, with yellows shown to Michael Folorunsho, Mandela Keita, Leonardo Colombo and Pontus Almqvist, in a contest where both sides finished with the same 16 fouls committed. Neither team could deliver the decisive blow it needed, and the bottom of the Serie A table is still waiting for one of these two to start pulling away.