Inter and Roma Stay Perfect as Serie A's Early Pace Setters Separate

Inter fought back from two goals down to beat Udinese 5-3 on Monday, preserving a perfect start to the Serie A season alongside Roma at the top of the table, according to the Guardian's European football roundup. The same report places Como third, an early positioning that few foreign desks would have predicted when the campaign opened.

The weekend's other result carried more weight for the established order: Sassuolo beat Juventus 3-2, the Guardian reported, in a round that also saw Napoli in action. Taken together, the results describe a table in which the sides expected to set the pace have already dropped points while two of last season's outsiders have not.

The Guardian's roundup frames the fifth round as a question of who can sustain a start rather than who has the deepest squad. Inter's recovery from a two-goal deficit is the kind of result foreign coverage tends to read as a marker of a title race rather than a single afternoon: the goals came in a game the side was losing, and the margin at the end was two clear goals.

Juventus's defeat at Sassuolo gives the round its sharpest contrast. A two-goal winning margin for the home side, reported plainly by the Guardian, is the sort of scoreline that travelling supporters and foreign correspondents alike treat as evidence of a summer's recruitment work not yet settled. The wire carries the result, not the explanation, and the club has not been quoted on it in the international coverage available.

Como's move to third is the quieter story in the same roundup. The Guardian lists the position without elaboration, which is where the foreign press has left it; the club's presence in the top three after five rounds is the fact, and any reading of how long it lasts belongs to later matchdays.

For the Sport desk, the value of this round is comparative. Serie A's early table now has two perfect records, a third place occupied by a side outside the traditional group, and a Juventus result that will be re-examined by the foreign press when the Champions League calendar begins. The Guardian's coverage of the round is a roundup, not a verdict, and the next set of fixtures is where the claims made by these results will be tested.