Como is fashionable, but beating last-place Venezia is the real test

Is it harder to beat Manchester or to beat the team sitting dead last? Ask any coach and you'll get a sigh, because the honest answer is the second one. Como, the most fashionable project in Italian football right now, gets its own version of that exam today at lunchtime.

The facts are simple. Como host Venezia at the Sinigaglia (12:30 local) in round 10. Corriere dello Sport says they are chasing a fourth consecutive win, while La Provincia di Como counts a fifth and includes a win over Manchester in the run. Venezia are alone at the bottom, with one win and two defeats under Davide Nicola. Kean is out, with a stoppage of about five weeks reported after Fabregas's press conference, while Liberali is back.

The tell is the caution, not the confidence

Winning teams usually talk like winners. Fabregas did the opposite. According to the pre-match coverage, he said Venezia are worth far more than the table suggests and have troubled even the big sides.

We read that two ways. The charitable one: a coach protecting his players from complacency, which is smart. The more interesting one: Fabregas may know that his team's reputation was built on high-profile results, and that those are not the same thing as week-in, week-out dominance. A contender doesn't need to warn itself about the bottom club. It simply expects to beat it.

Kean is an alibi, and Como shouldn't use it

Losing a starting striker is a real problem. But it also hands everyone a ready-made excuse, and that is exactly why today matters. If Como win with Douvikas leading the line, supported by Da Cunha, Paz and Baturina, the story is depth. If they slip, the story writes itself: a team that needed one man.

The local press is already hedging. La Provincia di Como describes the match as the easiest on paper, then calls it a banana peel, and raises the question of energy with Lens ahead. We think that is the real risk: not Venezia's quality, but a squad deciding in its head that this is the match to rest. Turnover is sensible. Treating three points as optional is not.

Venezia are bad, not harmless

Let's give the visitors their due. Nicola has already beaten Napoli this season, and after the defeat to Inter he said he was satisfied with what he saw and with how quickly the team is improving. He also says his side must be calmer in the final meters and sharper in front of goal. That is the profile of a team that creates chances and wastes them, and those are often the sides that steal a point from a favorite who is drifting.

Still, the gap is the point. Como arrive off a 3-1 win at Torino, and Gazzetta notes that in their four previous Serie A meetings with Venezia they have one win and three draws. History says this fixture has not been a formality.

A fashionable project still has to take the easy three points

Como's project is real, and the results against stronger opponents suggest as much. But projects get applause; contenders get three points on days like this, with a patched-up attack and Lens looming. A win doesn't make Como champions of anything. A stumble, though, would tell us the fashionable label is ahead of the football. We lean toward the win, probably comfortable, and we'd watch Fabregas's tone afterward: if the caution disappears, so does the doubt.