Hellas Verona have earned 20 points from 35 Serie A matches this season. Their expected points total is 40.64. That is not a rounding error. That is an entire season's worth of mid-table breathing room, evaporated into thin air. A gap of -20.64 xPoints is not a bad run. It is a parallel universe where the same team, playing the same football, sits comfortably in 14th or 15th instead of staring down the barrel of Serie B.
Nobody is talking about this.
The xPoints Abyss
An xPoints delta of -20.64 is genuinely extreme. To put it plainly, Verona have created and conceded chances at the rate of a team on 40 or 41 points, a total that, in most Serie A seasons, keeps you clear of the relegation conversation entirely. Instead, they have 3 wins, 11 draws, and 21 losses. Three wins from 35 matches for a team whose underlying chance creation and prevention profile suggests roughly double the points they actually have. The CURSD Luck Index places them at -57, second in Serie A only to Pisa's catastrophic -81.
A Finishing Crisis Without a Finishing Solution
Verona have scored 24 goals from 32.55 xG, a finishing delta of -8.55. That is roughly one goal every four matches that the model expected and the strikers did not deliver. Over a full season, that translates to seven or eight situations where a conversion at league-average rates changes a draw into a win or a loss into a draw. The 389 shots they have taken are not prolific, but they are not negligible. The problem is not a lack of chances. It is a systematic failure to convert the ones they get.
Eight and a half missing goals is a lot of points left on the pitch.
The Defense That Kept Getting Worse
Here is where the honesty matters. Verona's xGA of 43.56 is not good. They have been outshot 466 to 389 and their net xG of -11.01 confirms they are, by the numbers, a below-average team. This is not a secretly elite side being robbed by fate. But 43.56 expected goals conceded is a long way from 57 actual goals conceded. That defensive variance of +13.44 means opponents have beaten Verona's goalkeeper at a rate far exceeding the quality of the chances created. Whether that is poor goalkeeping, defensive errors at the worst possible moments, or sheer opponent finishing luck, the result is the same. Verona have been punished at a rate their defensive structure does not deserve.
Combine -8.55 in finishing with +13.44 in defensive variance and you get a team bleeding from both ends simultaneously.
What the Curse Is Not
It is not injuries. Verona's injury burden of 65 is nearly half the league average of roughly 120, meaning their squad has been among the healthiest in the division. It is not schedule strength, either. At 1.23, their fixture difficulty is slightly above average but nowhere near punitive enough to explain a 20-point gap. And their discipline, 83 yellows and 4 reds, is unremarkable. There is no external factor to absorb the blame. The variance is the story.
Verona are a bad team. But they are not a 20-point team. The gap between those two realities is the curse.
What Regression Would Actually Buy Them
With three matches remaining, regression is a concept for next season, not a rescue plan. But the exercise is still instructive. If Verona had converted chances and conceded goals at expected rates all season, their 40.64 xPoints would likely have them sitting around 14th, clear of danger, planning for another year of anonymous mid-table Serie A existence. Instead, they are all but certain to go down. The margins in Italian football's lower half are thin enough that even partial regression, converting at average rates in attack or conceding at average rates in defense, would have changed the entire narrative.
They did not need to be lucky. They just needed to not be this.