Never before in this era of domestic domination have they established sole possession of first place so early in a campaign

Time to release the confetti, pass out the champagne and discover what clunky social media pun Juventus have planned to follow on from #Le6end and #My7th. The Bianconeri are champions of Italy for the eighth consecutive year. Or so you might think, thumbing through some of the coverage of a weekend when they moved two points clear at the top.

“There is no anti-Juve,” declared the front page of Gazzetta dello Sport on Monday. Inside the pink paper, Sebastiano Vernazza lamented: “Serie A seems to have become a close relative of the Belorussian league, where Bate Borisov have won for 12 years running.”

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Never before in this era of domestic domination have they established sole possession of first place so early in a campaign. Roma, Inter, Lazio and Milan had already dropped over the first two weekends. Napoli were thumped 3-0 by Sampdoria on Sunday night.

It was a chastening defeat for a team that felt so full of optimism after successive come-from-behind wins. This time, Napoli had no answer after falling behind to Grégoire Defrel’s blistering 20-yard drive in the 11th minute.

Sampdoria were as ruthless as the Partenopei were sloppy. Defrel’s opener arrived at the end of a swift counter that began with him winning the ball between two opponents in midfield. On the second, he found himself all alone in front of goal despite Napoli enjoying a three-to-two numbers advantage (keeper excluded) inside their penalty area.

The marking was poor again on Sampdoria’s third, though Fabio Quagliarella’s finish was sublime: a backheel volley whose nonchalance was only amplified by his refusal to celebrate against the former club he adores. It says everything about the player’s back catalogue that he could not say for sure if it was the best of his career, putting it only in the “top three”.

Eleven Sports (@ElevenSports_UK) 🔥 Goal of the season already? 🔥@FQuagliarella27 with an outrageous piece of skill, as Sampdoria see off Napoli in a shock 3-0 win.



Have you seen a better goal this year? #PureFootball #SerieA pic.twitter.com/uwkOmTsvev

Defrel was more confident in declaring his first was the best he’d ever hit off his weaker right boot. As excellent as Sampdoria’s finishing was, though, Napoli ought to be troubled by the fact they have faced a total of six shots on target this season, and every one of them has wound up in the net.

Five of those have arrived with David Ospina in goal. He was criticised for failing to keep out Giacomo Bonaventura’s opener in the win over Milan and while few keepers would have done any better on the shots this weekend, it is fair to ask whether his predecessor, Pepe Reina, might have inspired a greater sense of confidence in the defence.

This might prove to be a short-term problem for Napoli, with intended No 1 Alex Meret – signed from Udinese in the summer – expected back from a fractured arm before the end of this month. The immediate concern is that three points is already too big of a start to offer to a Juventus side who finished with 95 last time out.

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The champions were not brilliant in their 2-1 win at Parma, jumping ahead in the second minute only to get pegged back and almost fall behind before the break. Gervinho, after applying the finishing touch to Roberto Inglese’s flick, laid on an inviting opportunity for Luca Rigoni in first-half injury-time, only for his team-mate to place his shot too close to Wojciech Szczęsny.

Juventus remain a work in progress. Massimiliano Allegri stuck with the 4-3-3 he had deployed against Lazio but the combination of Juan Cuadrado and Alex Sandro at the full-back positions gave his team a very attacking look and perhaps asked too much of Giorgio Chiellini and Leonardo Bonucci in the middle. Cristiano Ronaldo started once more on the left of attack, swapping with Mario Mandzukic in the middle, but only came close to scoring from a first-half header.

His failure to make an instant impact in Turin will inevitably be a talking point, yet he has often been a slow starter in his career. Ronaldo averages 0.52 goals per game in the month of August, as compared to 1.17 in September. His 23 shots and zero goals are, in fact, the exact same figures that he had at this stage of last season in Madrid.

Still, the player’s own anxiousness to break this duck is obvious. Ronaldo will miss Portugal’s forthcoming Nations League game against Italy after requesting to be left out so he could spend the international break getting more settled in Turin.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Mario Mandzukic, Cristiano Ronaldo and Douglas Costa celebrate their team’s victory at Parma. Photograph: Andreas Solaro/AFP/Getty Images

It is an ominous thought, for Juventus’s rivals, that the champions have won three from three with their €100m summer signing yet to make a tangible impact. Never mind the fact Douglas Costa, Emre Can and Paulo Dybala all started on the bench this weekend as well.

The suggestion that Juventus might stay top till the end of the campaign is plausible. Yet amid all the talk of foregone conclusions, we might remind ourselves that their status rests in part on the fact that Fiorentina have played one game fewer. The Viola own a perfect record, too, after adding a 1-0 victory over Udinese to their 6-1 rout of Chievo. Their scheduled season-opener, away to Sampdoria, was postponed.

Eighth-placed finishers last time out, they are not the most likely contenders to Juventus’s throne. Yet it was their win over Napoli in May – a week after the Partenopei had won in Turin – that effectively sealed the Old Lady’s latest title.

It was a reminder, back then, that events on the pitch are not always as predictable as hindsight can make them seem. Perhaps that champagne can stay on ice for now.

Talking points

• Also of note in that Napoli defeat: Carlo Ancelotti resting Marek Hamsik and José Callejon. Those players missed one league game between them under Maurizio Sarri – and that was when the Spaniard was suspended.

• Troubling times for Roma, beaten 2-1 by Milan just a week after they required a two-goal comeback to draw with Atalanta. The decision to part ways with Radja Nainggolan and Kevin Strootman continues to perplex. Daniele De Rossi still has plenty to offer, but was showing his age even before he turned 35 this July. Steven N’Zonzi made his first start at San Siro and might have won the game had his goal not been overturned on a VAR review, but that would have been a travesty after a game in which Roma were thoroughly outplayed.

• Nainggolan opened the scoring as Inter beat Bologna 3-0 on his debut. That scoreline flatters the Nerazzurri, yet they will take encouragement from the fact it was achieved without Mauro Icardi

• Sassuolo sit second after a 5-3 win over Genoa that featured some breathtakingly bad defending, yet also some lovely football. For all his bad-boy reputation, and yearning towards music stardom, Kevin-Prince Boateng has shown a great deal of humility in this latter part of his football career and is off to a flyer with the Neroverdi. When one reporter asked him on the eve of the season if he could be Sassuolo’s Ronaldo, he shot back with a deadpan: “Maybe, yes,” before adding, “but I’m short by 500 goals.” Just 498 left to go now.