At the end of the season, let’s discover the initial playoff fixtures that will decide, among the twenty-eight participating teams, the one that will take part in the next Serie B championship
CASERTA (alfonso centore) – The regular season is over as regards Serie C, group C, the one that concerns Mister Cangelosi’s Casertana, and it is immediately time to start thinking about the playoffs.
D’Agostino’s team can relax for a week before the start of the most frenetic period of the year in which twenty-eight teams, belonging to the three groups, will compete for the final crown, valid for access to Serie B together to the roses promoted by right, such as Mantua, Cesena and Juve Stabia.
Before going to the global phase of the competition, which will also include the teams belonging to group A and group B, we must wait for the end of the last round of the championship scheduled for today. It is possible, however, to begin to outline the situation of Casertana and the respective group, organized as follows: Avellino and Benevento (2nd and 3rd respectively) directly access the national phase of the playoffs, skipping the preliminary one which will be held on Saturday May 4th and Tuesday May 7th.
Cangelosi’s team, however, having achieved fourth place, will be able to skip the first preliminary round, to take the field in the second round, with the advantage of home advantage and results. It should be remembered, in fact, that the team with the best position can play for two results out of three, since in the event of a draw after 90 minutes, the team that achieved the best record in the regular season will advance.
However, the criteria for the national phase are different, where the seedings come into play (including the aforementioned Avellino and Benevento) and the criterion of passing the round is based, in the event of a draw in the aggregate home and away result , on goal difference or, in the case of a persistent draw, on the seeding itself.
So, who will face Casertana? To answer the question you need to read between the brackets on the scoreboard in the preliminary phase, which sees the following pairings on May 4: Taranto-Latina, Picerno-Crotone and Audace Cerignola-Giugliano. It is precisely from this last match that the opponent of D’Agostino’s team will emerge, who will be able to count on the field factor to then access the national phase after the match on 7 May.
It should be remembered that Catania is also present in group C, having saved themselves from the playouts on the last day with the victory over Benevento, thus gaining direct access to the national playoff phase, as winners of the Italian Serie C Cup.
This is the picture at the moment, reading the rankings today, Sunday.
But the entire analysis may undergo changes, as the appeal to the Taranto CONI Guarantee Board for the cancellation of the four penalty points is still pending. In addition to the time delay that this may cause, leading to the postponement of the start date of the playoff, in the event of a victory in the appeal the dispositions of the teams would also change, with Capuano’s team rising to second place and becoming seeded by accessing the phase national team, making Benevento climb to the second preliminary round and forcing Casertana to start from the first round, but all this will be decided in the next few days.
At the moment the rumors seem to give some validity to the hypothesis that Taranto will be given back two points.
In this way, the Apulian team would move from fifth to third place in the standings, a condition that would allow them to skip the territorial playoff play-off phase.
With Taranto second on 67 points, Casertana would drop to 5th place and, therefore, would already be forced to play this Saturday (4 May) at the Pinto stadium against Latina, tenth and last place in the play-offs.
Clearly, the Falchetti would have the field factor in their favor and two results out of three, a condition that would make the passage of this step easier.
Having overcome Latina, Casertana should then face the winner between Picerno and Crotone or Cerignola and Giugliano, it will depend on who passes the round and their position in the standings, to go to the national final phase.
In the event of an inadmissible or rejected appeal against Taranto, Casertana would not play on Saturday, but directly on 7 May, against the team that goes through to the round on Saturday 4 May with the worst position in the standings.
We remind you that for the territorial phase of the play-offs the rules are: single home match of the best ranked team, in case of a draw the best ranked team advances, there are no extra time or penalties
