Napoli vs. Lazio: Finally, A Home Game
By: Neil |
1 Comment
After two consecutive road games and an international break, Napoli will return to the San Paolo for the first time in quite a while. The opponents are a Lazio team currently in 16th place in the table. Napoli has good news on the injury front, as the only significant problem is Fabiano Santacroce who is recovering from a torn meniscus. Lazio are famously without Goran Pandev and Cristian Ledesma, and more on that after the jump.
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Category: Team News
Best 20 Players of the Last Decade
By: Neil | 35 Comments
A number of these posts are going up on various offside blogs, so with a quiet weekend for club football I thought I’d create my own team of the decade. This activity might be a lot better if people waited a year for the next World Cup and used the years 2001-2010 but that wouldn’t really be this decade would it? The timespan for this exercise is 2000-2009 whether it creates problems or not. After the jump I will list my team and the begin the long process of explaining and justifying.
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Category: Team NewsQuagliarella Slumps, Bigon speaks
By: Neil | 27 Comments
I didn’t see Napoli’s scoreless draw with Catania, but from watching the highlights it didn’t look all that bad. True, Catania are second from bottom, but it’s the nature of Serie A that almost every game is difficult in some way, and even the worst Serie A teams can play well on any given day. Both sides should have scored with Morimoto and Lavezzi having clear breakaways, but in the end there was nothing major that separated the teams.
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Category: Team NewsOld Foes New Horizons
By: Christopher | 59 Comments
Back on the road, which during the end of Reja’s and [all of] Donadoni’s reign, was a worrisome venture. Now there is a certain air of expectation surrounding the game, one of optimism and victory. The words spoken by Mazzarri say it all:
“It’s the ideal week to lose to Catania. They are a team of a good level that plays good football and if there is too much enthusiasm this could well become negative because the enthusiasm has to stay with the fans,” Mazzarri said.
“Instead, my lads and every one else at Napoli have to have the spirit and the brains not to underestimate the job at hand.
“This is the jump in quality, making people understand with facts that we are actually a team. The most important game is always the next. I don’t like to speak about results. I like to speak about performances and work,” Mazzarri explained.
“We should no longer have to concede to wake ourselves up, painful things do give a better taste in the end, but we are working to ensure it doesn’t happen anymore.”
Last season they whooped us nice in an efficient 3-1 victory, when we were in the beginning of what would be some treacherous form. Now the roles have reversed a bit. Mazzarri showed us that achieving a road victory doesn’t have to be a once a year holiday, but rather a reoccurring celebration. And… the Etnei, 7 points in 11 games.. ouch. No surprise that Atzori’s job may be resting on this one despite quite the injury crisis. Along with the injuries (Delvecchio the most notable) there are suspended defenders Matias Silvestre and Ciro Capuano from the spanking they got from Viola last week. That is poor luck because Capuano has looked a ray of shining light for the Sicilians in defense so far. While I look down on Catania from our 6th place perch, it should be noted that our avg. goals per match allowed is 2.2, compared to their 1.4 (away, to home, respectively). Humility boys, humility. With Japanese sensation Morimoto coming back from suspension, lining up alongside Mascara, Catania are a team to take seriously in terms of potential goal threats. Our back four has not looked like the most assured aerial force either.
A Game to Win
Mazzarri will be looking for a clean cut victory here, no last gasp emotional come backs, just some start to finish solid play all the way through. The kind of play that will start to officially give the team an identity. There shouldn’t be any massive changes from the side that whooped Juventus.
It will be interesting to see if Datolo gets his wing spot back after his stellar role last week, as well as if Quags gets to be in the starting 11.
Probable Lineup (3-4-2-1): De Sanctis, Grava, Cannavaro, Contini; Maggio, Gargano, Cigarini, Aronica; Hamsik, Lavezzi; Denis
Lining up against our old nemesis 3-5-2 the midfield battle should be interesting, but winnable, easily- really looking for Gargano and Cigs to dominate here (as I do pretty much the whole team). We can’t get give away possession cheaply in midfield, as all it takes a through ball to Contini to pass the ball to Morimoto in front of net. But again, defense needs to be stable, hopefully we learned from the Milan game. Speaking of stable, or lack thereof, where has Zuniga been? Talk about the antithesis of reinforcement. I’m pretty upset he’s been about as useless as an empty mayonnaise jar, as I had high hopes when he was signed. But did I mention I love Hamsik? Get that contract extended even further.
Unfortunately I have to leave for the weekend : ( to a land of no internet- but espn360 is showing us live again so I’ll catch the replay. Have a great weekend everyone.
Lets make it a 5 game unbeaten record Mazzarri, Forza Napoli
Category: Team NewsHistorical Context and Mercato Rumours
By: Neil | 7 Comments
Napoli’s 3-2 victory in Torino last Saturday was the club’s first victory away to Juventus in 21 years. This alone is reason for celebration, but if you look the entire week it might be the best week of Napoli calcio since the team qualified for the UEFA Cup in 1991-92. Can anyone remember a time during the last 17 years when Napoli did better than beating Fiorentina and Juventus away and drawing Milan at home? If the team continues to pick up results, there will be inevitable comparisons with Maradona era of the late 80’s and early 90’s.
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Category: Team NewsThe Story So Far…
By: Christopher | 9 Comments
My apologies for the delay. With course scheduling taking place, the past couple of days have been about as frantic as Juventus’ back four on Saturday. So while a lot of the hype has died down from our epic battle at the Olimpico, I’d like to recap a little bit of what happened; But at the same time to stop and take a breather for some perspective of where our team is right now– because 6th place is more than I expected, especially after a recent rough stretch of matches (Roma, Bologna, Fiorentina, Milan, Juve). We are making up for lost opportunity from the dark ages of the Donadoni era…
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Lets start with what went wrong (mainly one thing, to which you can probably guess before reading a second further):
First, Contini:
We need to work something out with Contini, hmm… leave and De La will pay for your haircut? If we are going to take the next step up in quality, and thrust ourselves into European competition, it would help if he didn’t grace the other team with easy goals, thus forcing Hamsik into further brilliance. While I enjoy seeing the latter, Hamsik could spare the additional sweat to keep his hair fresh.
That was just sad to watch. Contini, succumb to Anne Robinson’s wrath.
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Second, Conceding early
A recent footballitalia blog was written about this, raising a couple of questions. Mazzarri’s style is clearly one of passion and inspiration, but what will happen if we are leading and need to maintain consistency this way? Saving Reggina from relegation, earning promotion for Livorno, are all great comeback feats suggests the article, but what about for Napoli, who are expected to migrate towards the high end of the table and be consistent? Is he the right man? These seem to be a legitimate questions seeing as he’s known for that, but I don’t think we should look too far into it yet. As mentioned before, it was a difficult stretch of games that he came into, and with the exception of Bologna, the early goals were mere lapses of concentration (as shown above) that can’t necessarily be fully pinned on him. This being said, the next game against Catania will be the true meter of how much we should look into this issue. Mazzarri will have to settle them down from last weekend, because while their team is terrible, there are some players who can punish you in those brain fart *cough* Contini *cough* moments.
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The Good:
Again, hats off to all the players and Mazzarri, even if we lost or tied that game- while I would have been pissed- I would have been immensely satisfied with the competitiveness that the players showed up with. Wow what a contrast of play between these past four games and when Donadoni was leading. Personally, I recall many times being fed up with our lackluster play in the second half of a ‘Donadoni Napoli,’ and thus not feeling bad leaving the computer to make an extra cup o’ joe to ease the stress. With a ‘Mazzarri Napoli,’ the cup o’ joe best be ready before the game, or it’s waiting until half time.
Mazzarri Praise
I’m wondering if in these past couple of decisive games, anyone who was on the fence when he was hired, feels differently after getting to know him better. These were the results of last quiz.
While I can’t remember which one I voted for, I do remember being hesitant (but still in an ‘anything is better than this [Donadoni]” attitude). Apparently De La knew this was the right move two years ago! Maybe this guy knows more about football than everyone thinks…That’s another story though.
“I had already thought about Mazzarri two years ago. I was sure that he would be ideal for a place like Napoli.”
“But I was in Los Angeles, I couldn’t pursue the deal. And when Edy Reja left, Donadoni arrived. I shouldn’t have given him a two-year contract.”
The Juve game definitely changed my views. Mazzarri really had the team playing, and he really displayed some tactical know- how. As De La again said, the subs were perfect.
Datolo the super sub?
(Don’t strangle the guy!)
Well I don’t think the phrase super sub has ever had as much meaning, coming on to slot a clutch goal (was it his very first touch?), and then an even more clutch assist. There are two things I’d like to look at here:
1) The progression of Datolo as a player under Mazzarri, and
2) The tactics of this substitution within the game
First, every coach has his new breed of favorites, and who they think fits best where, blah blah blah. But even so, I was surprised to see two of Mazzarri’s changes to Donadoni’s standard starting 11: Pazienza for Cigs, and Aronica for Datolo. I think many of us would agree that the latter players have more quality than the former ones. It seems Mazzarri may have pulled one over on us, while he shook up the line up to further instigate these players to the quality he needs. And I think it is in the process of working. Cigarini is improving, scoring against Milan, and regaining his starting position.
Second, the tactics of this were brilliant. What’s that? Camoranesi is not on the field helping to protect the flank with ‘the weakest link’ Grygera? Instead, it’s Tiago, who, after reading the Juventusoffside’s comments, is regarded as a useless and overrated player. So what does Mazzarri do but recognize this and push even further for wing play. And he got it. The flank was often overwhelmed and if Grygera could questionably mark a man tight in a 1 v. 1 situation, he sure as hell couldn’t do it in 2 v. 1 situations.
Again, all of this is great, but now it’s up to Mazzarri to instill the ‘one game at a time’ mentality before we take on Catania.
Are you a Mazzarri convert? or still Hesitant?(survey)
Forza Napoli!
Category: Team NewsThe Comeback Kids
By: Christopher | 96 Comments
That’s what they’re all calling us now. No Just kidding, I don’t know a single Napoli fan that lives near my desolate town, but if there were maybe that’s what they’d be saying? I don’t know about everyone else but I’m still on a high from the Milan game, or just high in general, but that’s a different story. Is it just me or is our season just getting more and more epic with every game? 
First the late Bologna win… the epic Fiorentina victory (I don’t want to toot my own horn here but I remember calling a victory there, and would have been right on goal differential if Quags could take a damn penalty. So for what it’s worth, I’d like to put my footballing dignity out there again and predict another victory- I’ll explain why later), and then we all know how last game went. But this time it’s Juve at the ol’ Olimpico, paying a visit to our pals Ferrara and Cannavaro…ahhh what would you do for some of their defensive talent infused in our back four (Ferrara at 41 > Contini? Hm.)? If Paolo makes it back we can see a little sibling rivalry going on, he’ll surely want to impress. Juventus and Napoli are both coming off some mixed results in terms of results and form. Juventus recently thrashed the hell out of Sampdoria after some shaky performances (the difference is they win with shaky performances, but that’s just what the top teams do). Let’s go over some key match ups.
4-2-3-1 vs. 4-2-3-1
Well we’ve both been through the formation changes, unfortunately for learning new systems during the season ours had to accompany a coaching change too. Ours is in it’s fetal stages, theirs is growing into freakin Achilles. Anyone remember that bullshit I was spewing in one of my first posts about the rebirth of the trequartista (in Serie A)? Well apparently that fad is on the outs now, the trequartista experiment has failed for a at least a couple of teams- Milan, Lazio have found themselves migrating to a 4-2-3-1 (even though it hasn’t done them too many favors in the depths of the table… Pandev and Ledesma anyone?) Juventus started out with the 4-3-1-2, utilizing Diego, who at the beginning of the season looked like he was going to replicate his Werder Bremen success and THEN some. This was looking awesome for my fantasy team (go Diego, just don’t score tomorrow), but it wasn’t to continue. Teams learned if they glue a couple guys to mark the shit out of him, the Juve three pronged attack would be more like a spoon. Hence, we have the switch to the 4-2-3-1, aka a way to have Diego and former treq. backup Giovinco, playing at the same time, along with the very in form Mauro Camoranesi, who when he can play more than one game in a row, is just a dominant, underestimated force to be contended with, AHHH! Ours is still getting it together, and it will be interesting to see how Cigarini and Denis’ performances will impact Mazzarri’s selection. I think you could make a case for both of them being in the line up, Cigarini for Pazienza and Denis for Quags. For them, there is little question as to who’s up top (although Del Piero could reportedly make an appearance), Amauri despite an early goal drought started scoring, said he was going to score more, and is scoring more. That is some cause for concern, but then again so are most strike forces when lined up on paper to our back four. I really feel that Mazzarri is getting the best out of these guys though. The Milan game showed that despite the early trembles, the defense held its own for large portions of the game. I suppose part of this was due to our consistency in possession and attack, something Donadoni could not produce.
Finishing vs. Buffon
Damn, if Dida was frustrating, imagine Buffon. Despite needing knee surgery, he’s in that type of fantastic form that has a tendency to single handedly win Juventus games. As much as I love Quags, we may need that little bit of something magical to beat Buffon, and what do you know, of all people to show some of that finishing magic, it’s Denis! Fuck, if he can score, put him out there.
Perfect Timing?
I’ve seen a good amount of Juve’s league games, some of the Champions League matches they played, and nearly every game Buffon was key in the last 10 minutes. For some reason or another, Juve have a tendency to take their foot of the pedal at this time of the game. It is actually somewhat funny to watch, it starts at the top with the strikers who lose possession, the DM’s make bad passes, and all in all it ends up being a shit show in front of Buffon who comes up with some serious saves to maintain the status quo of the game. Team quality doesn’t necessarily matter either, it happened against Bologna, a very late header in stoppage time, and it very nearly happened against CL group underdogs Maccabi Haifa (who they actually play again next week which could be an additional advantage for us) as they barely held onto their 1-0 lead towards the end of the game. Unfortunately, this graph isn’t the greatest representation of my point, but you can sort of get the gist, most goals conceded are before the breaks.
Our goals conceded under 15 is sad- looking at this through the preview function, the bar is so long you can’t even see the tally (Don’t ask don’t tell). But if we can hold off early pressure, and be patient and attack at the right times I think we can win this one. Again, not a completely logical argument for thinking we can win away against Juventus, but the type of spirit Mazzarri has our team playing with, well it has carried over to me a bit, and I can’t help feeling optimistic against any opponent.
Grosso vs. Maggio
Everyone knows the greatest weakness of Juve is at the fullback position. It’s what exposed their CB’s last season, and although it’s looking better this year with Grosso and Caceres, I think it’s still something that can be exploited. I’m looking for Maggio to have an explosive game. It will be a very interesting battle between he and Grosso, who can sometimes be caught up field in vulnerable situations. If Maggio finds the right balance between going forward and and defending, good things will happen. On their left, Grygera, probably the weakest link in the line up due to Caceres’ broken nose, can be easily exposed. Some reports have us lining up a 3-4-3 which I think could work well in this context of working wing play. It would also obviously allow Denis to get on the field as well, which up until a recently I decided is a good thing.
Draw up the game plan Mazzarri!
Forza Napoli!
Category: Team NewsInterview With The Vampire
By: Neil | 5 Comments
For the record, Napoli President Aurelio De Laurentiis is not a vampire. But whenever I see his cold, unmoving face, the image of him ripping apart his players’ flesh and drinking their blood flashes across my mind. Sorry for the gruesome thoughts but I just had to do a Halloween themed post this year. DeLa gave an extensive interview after the 2-2 draw with Milan, and some of his comments are certainly worth discussing.
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Category: Team NewsFacere Ex Nihilo
By: Neil | 22 Comments
Napoli 2 AC Milan 2
I’ve never studied Latin but the above title roughly translates as “to make out of nothing” which is exactly what Napoli did against Milan. In the 89th minute Napoli had nothing, and despite some postive play they were going to be deserved losers on the day. All of the sudden, Cigarini converts a broken up corner kick into a wonder goal. Then, deep into injury time, Maggio hits a desperate cross which Denis heads into the far corner of the net. Napoli, like the gods of the ancient world, created something out of nothing.
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Category: Team NewsWelcome, Mr. Lippi
By: Neil | 67 Comments
A very special spectator will be at the San Paolo Wednesday night as Napoli host Milan in a battle of two teams who are in the process of finding their top form. Nazionale boss Marcello Lippi will have an eye on a number of players, but most importantly Milan’s Alessandro Nesta and Napoli’s Christian Maggio. Nesta is still officially retired from Italy, but if he continues to play at his best Lippi will do everything he can to pull the former Lazio captain out of international retirement. Maggio is available for selection and the right sided midfielder is recapturing the form that earned him a big money move to Napoli and an initial callup to the Italy squad. Watch the game live on Fox Soccer Channel @ 3:30 Eastern time.
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Category: Team News
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