Serie A: Como and Roma play out first 0-0 of the season after 54 games

Como and Roma turned the most anticipated fixture of the weekend into the first goalless draw of the Serie A season. It took 54 matches before a 0-0 appeared in the Italian top flight this campaign, a striking fact in a competition that for decades was linked to catenaccio and tight scorelines.

• Como and Roma recorded the first 0-0 of the Serie A season.
• The Italian top flight had gone 53 games without a goalless draw.
• New 2026 World Cup refereeing rules have speeded up play in Italy.
• Effective playing time has risen by more than five minutes per match.
• Pierluigi Collina is behind the measures that are changing the pace of calcio.

Como and Roma end Serie A's scoring run

The weekend's marquee match finished without goals, an outcome that had not occurred all season. Serie A had opened the campaign with an unusual attacking rhythm and maintained that momentum for more than fifty games before Como and Roma cancelled each other out. The origin of that trend makes the result all the more striking: a league once famous for rigid defenses is living through one of its most prolific spells in years.

Why Serie A needed 54 games to produce a 0-0

The shift owes much to the rules introduced at the 2026 World Cup to make the game faster, rules that Serie A adopted from the start of the season. Italy missed a third consecutive World Cup, but those running calcio paid close attention to the new refereeing regulations that are giving the championship a different feel.

The new refereeing rules that have changed calcio

The driving force behind this mini revolution is Italian: Pierluigi Collina, arguably the country's most prestigious referee even two decades after hanging up his whistle. As FIFA's head of refereeing, he pushed through firm measures for the 2026 World Cup: five seconds to take a throw-in, ten seconds to leave the pitch during a substitution and one minute off the field after receiving medical treatment.

Imported into Italy, where wasting time, feigning injuries and slowing play are something of an art form, these rules are having an almost miraculous effect. Average effective playing time has risen by five minutes and five seconds compared with last season, reaching 59 minutes and 24 seconds in the opening five matchdays and closing in on the hour mark.

I see a championship where the intensity and quality of play have increased. These new rules bring speed and remove dead time.

Those words belong to Inter Milan head coach Cristian Chivu, who welcomed the higher tempo after his side's 2-2 draw against Roma at the Stadio Olimpico. The Romanian coach is comfortable with wide scorelines: "You simply have to accept that matches can end with big scorelines, but I like that".

Referees are recovering their standing under the new rules

Match officials are also coming out ahead. After a 2025-26 season marked by VAR controversies, and with VAR's scope reduced since this summer, referees have begun to rebuild their reputation. Daniele Orsato, the new head of Serie A referees, stresses that the World Cup's legacy was seeing the official become a central figure.

Now, when a player is on the ground, he thinks: 'If I stay here, we will play with ten men for a minute and they could score a goal.' With these new rules, my referees finish exhausted and have even more to think about, but it is not asking too much because the results speak for themselves.

Roberto Mancini on the future of 0-0 draws in Serie A

Roberto Mancini, back in charge of the Italian national team, also praised the officials at the start of the international break. The coach has long felt that Italy played at a lower tempo than England because too many fouls were called. Still, his experience as a player and manager keeps him realistic: "Goalless draws will return when there is more at stake; that is calcio."

How many 0-0 draws Serie A used to have at this stage

The data becomes more meaningful when compared with previous seasons. Last campaign, after the first five matchdays, there had already been five goalless draws; in 2024-25 there were seven, the same number as in 1986-87, when only eight matches were played per round. Twenty years ago, during the golden age of austere catenaccio, the figure reached ten over the same opening stretch.

The 0-0 in Serie B and the wait until Como-Roma

Counting Serie B, only one goalless draw had been recorded since both leagues kicked off in mid-August. It came on 19 September in Cremonese against Entella. After the international break and before Como-Roma, two more followed in the second tier on Saturday: Arezzo-Cremonese and Sudtirol-Ascoli.

The challenge now is to see whether goals keep dominating in the coming rounds. Serie A has changed its usual landscape and fans are watching a faster tournament with more chances and fewer stoppages. The 0-0 between Como and Roma could be an exception or the first sign that defensive balance is starting to fight back.