Please note: This is the final Monday review of the 2024-25 season. Premium subscribers will continue to receive Thursday classic match reviews and Sunday specials throughout the year. Monday issues will return next season.

EUSEBIO DI FRANCESCO WELLED UP as he processed the result at the final whistle. For the second time in 12 months, he couldn't escape relegation. Last time, it was with Frosinone. This time, Venezia. Though they briefly led Juventus in a game they had to win to have a chance of surviving the drop, Venezia couldn't hold on. Captain Hans Nicolussi Caviglia, who, incidentally, joined Venezia from Juventus, gave away the penalty that sealed his team's demise. The Bianconeri won 3-2 and qualified for the Champions League. The Venetians went back down to Serie B.

The game meant so much to each team but for wildly different reasons. Juventus needed Champions League qualification to help pare €199.2 million in losses from the 2023-24 campaign. Without it, they'd have faced the prospect of a summer fire sale.

Venezia were trying to avoid the same fate they suffered the last time they were promoted to Serie A and build some credit in the league. A last-ditch financing agreement brokered by international star Drake had helped keep the club afloat and make possible the 24 signings they completed.

But the Stadio Pier Luigi Penzo, the 11,000-seater with views of the lagoon, wasn't as glum as you'd expect it to be. Fans applauded Venezia's players and staff. They waved flags and chanted as the players sought their forgiveness. Ecuadorian winger John Yeboah, whose shifty moves put Juventus into real bad spots, teared up. Supporters in the southern end where the songs were loudest recognized that they had come close, if not close enough.

A simple stat proved their undoing: Venezia somehow surrendered more points (33) from winning positions than they won (29) throughout the entire campaign. They had played well enough to win — beating Fiorentina and even taking points off Atalanta, Lazio, and Napoli — but didn't bring home enough results.

Roma digested the news from Venice with similar acceptance. They needed Juventus to drop points to crown their incredible mid-season turnaround with a top-four finish, but instead of trudging around the track that encircles the Olympic stadium in Turin, they hugged each other, laughed with their opponents, and looked altogether content with what they achieved. Because they wouldn't have believed fifth place was possible given how close they were to the relegation zone — and to self-immolation as fan anger culminated in the resignation of the club's CEO — before Claudio Ranieri took over in November. Roma lost just four times in Ranieri's 26 Serie A matches in charge. They were defeated five times in the 12 matches leading up to his triumphant return.

Of course they were happy. They lifted Mats Hummels, who's retiring at the end of his contract, as if he had won them the Scudetto. Roma had survived the most grueling of seasons and even finished ahead of Lazio, who tumbled to seventh place, outside of the European places, following a disastrous 1-0 loss at home to 10-man Lecce.

It's scarcely believable a team that was tied for fourth as recently as May 5 — and just a single point behind Napoli in the early months of the season — could fall so far down the table. But Lazio were playing the wrong team at the wrong time. Lecce entered the day in the relegation zone and in desperate need of a win to survive. They needed Empoli to drop points, too.

They got both.

Midfielder Lassana Coulibaly, who was part of the 2021-22 Salernitana side that won four of its last eight games to stave off relegation, gave Lecce a first-half lead they'd have to defend like a crown jewel after Santiago Pierotti was sent off for a second yellow card.

One of two Serie A sides, along with Napoli, to represent southern Italy, Lecce blocked everything in sight in a second half that resembled less of a football match and more of an artillery strike. Lazio gave them everything. Shots hurdled inches wide of the post, bounced off the top of the crossbar, and smashed into a mass of human bodies in the way. Lecce 'keeper Wladimiro Falcone, second in saves among Serie A shot-stoppers, threw Superman punches to clear his lines. He was acrobatic and reckless and exactly what Lecce needed.

The Pugliese did it. They really did it. Lecce made it work with the second-lowest payroll in Serie A. The Stadio Olimpico in Rome emptied out pretty quickly, but the celebrations of the few who traveled from Puglia filled the otherwise cavernous atmosphere with wonderful noise. Head coach Marco Giampaolo, who replaced Luca Gotti on the bench in November, embraced his staff and reveled in an achievement that he needed as much as the club. Giampaolo was lost as a manager after being fired seven matches into his tenure at AC Milan, taking breaks between unproductive spells at Torino and Sampdoria before cultivating enough of a team spirit at Lecce to keep games tight and take Serie A's best to the brink.

Lecce hadn't won back-to-back games all season. They did to end it.