Serie A relegation 2026-27: only three clubs carry a relegation tragic number, and Venezia's is 32 of 33

Venezia has played five Serie A matches and lost all five, and it is now the only club in the division whose relegation number is smaller than its own remaining fixture list. The engine puts Venezia's relegation tragic number at 32 with 33 matches still to play. Lose 32 of those 33 and staying up is finished as arithmetic, even if the thirty-third is a win.

Every figure here comes from the September 21 update. The September 21 results are already in the table, Milan 3-0 against Lecce and Juventus 2-0 against Atalanta, which leaves all twenty clubs on five played and 33 to play. The next fixtures on the schedule are on October 10. None of this is a probability or a projection.

Three clubs out of twenty carry a relegation tragic number at all. Bologna and Genoa are on 33, Venezia on 32. Since every club has 33 matches left, Bologna's number and Genoa's number are their entire fixture lists, and only Venezia's has come off the maximum. The other seventeen clubs have no relegation number whatsoever, which means that from where they stand today no run of their own defeats settles the drop by itself.

The single point between Genoa and Venezia is the whole reason their numbers differ, and the arithmetic is worth following. Seventeen clubs are already on four points or more. Venezia can win one of its 33 and lose the other 32, finish on three, and all seventeen of those clubs are still above it, so 32 defeats settle it. Genoa is on one point, so that same single win takes it to four, level with the five clubs sitting on four today. Finishing level with a rival does not put a club down, because in the tragic direction a rival counts only when it is certain to finish strictly above. So Genoa's number is the full 33.

Parma beat Genoa 2-1 at home on September 20, and that result is what shaped the bottom of the table. Parma is fifteenth on four points from one win, one draw and three defeats, out of the relegation places, and it carries no relegation number at all. Genoa is nineteenth on one point from one draw and four defeats, with three goals scored and ten conceded. Both clubs kicked off that match on one point from four games, and Parma left it on four while Genoa stayed on one.

Bologna is eighteenth on two points and still without a win, two draws and three defeats. Its defence is not the trouble, since six goals conceded is fewer than eleven other clubs in the division, but three goals scored is the lowest in the league, level with Genoa. Bologna has a relegation tragic number of 33 and no safety number at all. Exactly three clubs have that cell blank, and they are the same three.

Here is what the blank means. Add any club's safety number to the points it already has and the answer comes back the same seventeen times: 102, out of the 114 a 38-match season awards. The bar sits one point above the seventeenth-highest total any of that club's rivals can still reach, because a rival that can finish exactly level with you is counted as a threat. Seventeen clubs can still reach 103 or more. If you are one of them, only sixteen of your rivals can, the seventeenth-highest rival ceiling is Bologna's 101, and your bar is 102. If you are Bologna, Genoa or Venezia, all seventeen of those clubs are rivals, the seventeenth-highest rival ceiling is 103, and your bar is 104. Their own ceilings are 101, 100 and 99. A club that cannot reach its own bar cannot post a number, which is why those three cells are empty.

What to watch next. Udinese, Torino, Parma, Monza and Fiorentina sit thirteenth to seventeenth on four points each, every one of them with a ceiling of exactly 103 and a safety number of 98. That 98 is 98 of the 99 points still on offer, and there is no way to miss by one, since a draw costs two points and a defeat costs three, so the number means winning all 33. Three of those five are on the next listed card: Genoa hosts Fiorentina on October 10, Inter hosts Parma on October 11 and Lazio hosts Monza on October 11. Lecce hosts Bologna on October 11. Ceilings only fall, so the bar only falls, and a single defeat takes a club on 103 down to 100. The moment the seventeenth-highest rival ceiling reaches 100 or lower, Bologna's bar is 101 or lower, and 101 is exactly what Bologna can still reach by winning everything it has left. A blank cell can fill on a day the club is not playing.

How to read these numbers. A clinch or magic number is the minimum further points that guarantee an outcome even if every rival wins every match it has left. A tragic number is the further defeats after which the outcome is impossible even if the club wins everything else. Reachable rank is the highest and lowest finish still arithmetically open, and today that is first to twentieth for all twenty clubs, Venezia included. Ties are resolved the cautious way in both directions, but the caution does not always run against the club. When we ask what guarantees a place, a rival that can finish exactly level counts as a threat, so a clinch here can trail an official announcement by a day. In the tragic direction the caution runs the club's way, because a rival counts only when it is certain to finish strictly above, and no club is put down by a tie alone. That is why Genoa's number is 33 and not 32. Goal difference, head to head and the competition's own tie-break rules are not used. The live table is on the standings page, the remaining games on the schedule page, the European and relegation places on the postseason page, the full set of clinch and tragic numbers on the magic number page, and the rules behind every figure on the methodology page. You can push your own results through the table on the scenario page. The clubs in this piece carry their own figures: Venezia, Genoa, Bologna and Parma.