Hellas Verona have 20 points from 35 Serie A matches. Their expected points total is 40.64. That is not a rounding error. That is a 20.64-point gap between what the underlying chances said should happen and what actually happened, the second-largest negative variance in the Italian top flight this season.
Twenty extra points would not make Verona title contenders. It would make them a mid-table side instead of a club staring down the barrel of relegation with three matches to play. That is the particular cruelty here. The curse has not robbed them of glory. It has robbed them of anonymity.
The xPoints Chasm
An xPoints delta of -20.64 across 35 matches means Verona are underperforming their expected output by roughly 0.59 points per game. Over a full 38-match season, that projects to more than 22 points left on the table. Their 3 wins, 11 draws, and 21 losses read like a side that never competes. Their shot-level data tells a different story, one where 40-point safety was not just plausible but probable.
Only Pisa, with a Luck Index of -81, can claim a more cursed campaign in Serie A. Verona sit at -56. The difference is that people talk about Pisa. Verona's collapse has been quieter, steadier, and almost perfectly designed to look like simple incompetence from the outside.
Finishing: 8.55 Goals That Never Arrived
Verona have scored 24 goals from 32.55 xG worth of chances. That is a finishing delta of -8.55, meaning their attacking players have collectively missed the target by the equivalent of roughly one goal every four matches. From 389 shots, the conversion has been brutal. Not because the chances were not there, but because the final touch was not.
This is not a team being denied opportunities. It is a team being denied outcomes.
Defense: Where the Pain Compounds
The other side of the ledger is worse. Verona have conceded 57 goals against an xGA of 43.56, a defensive overperformance of negative 13.44 goals. In plain terms, opponents have scored 13 more goals than the quality of their chances would typically produce. Some of that is goalkeeping. Some of it is deflections, set-piece chaos, and the kind of low-probability finishes that cluster when a season goes sideways.
Combine the -8.55 finishing delta with the +13.44 defensive variance and you get a total goal swing of roughly 22 goals working against Verona. Their actual goal difference is -33. Adjust for variance and it shrinks to around -11. Still negative. Still a side being outplayed. But not a side that deserves to be 18th.
What They Actually Are
Honesty matters here. Verona's net xG is -11.01. They have been outshot 466 to 389. Their schedule strength of 1.23 means they have faced a slightly above-average set of opponents, and a discipline record of 83 yellows and 4 reds suggests a team that fouls frequently under pressure. These are not the underlying numbers of a good side.
But they are the underlying numbers of a side that should have roughly 40 points, not 20. The curse has not invented quality that does not exist. It has erased the quality that does.
One genuinely strange number: Verona's injury burden sits at 53, against a league average of approximately 120. They have been among the healthiest squads in Serie A and still managed to accumulate just 3 wins. Availability has not been the problem.
What Three Matches Could Buy
With three fixtures remaining, Verona would need to find form that has eluded them all season. Even modest regression, converting a draw or two into wins, may not be enough depending on results elsewhere. The xPoints model suggests a team capable of picking up 3-4 points from three remaining games. Whether the variance cooperates this late is another question entirely.
The math says Verona are a bottom-half team having a historically bad run of finishing and defensive luck. The table says they are one of the worst sides in Europe's top five leagues. Both things are technically true. Only one of them is the whole story.