Napoli-Lazio (Giornata 38)…that’s all folks!

By: Joe | May 16th, 2008

The last match of the season is always tinged with a somber note. No more Sunday mornings spent watching La Giostra dei Gol on RAI International. No more wondering just high up Francesca Calligaro’s skirts are going to go or how many times Simona Cantoni will wistfully pull off her glasses and stare into the camera and say… actually by that point I’m not really sure what she’s saying and I don’t care. No more cursing at SerieA.tv for their horrible customer service or having the Radio Marte feed die on me just at kickoff time (three times this season!).

One last hurrah before the complaining about going to church begins on Saturday afternoon and lasts through the Eucharist (if we’re lucky). Once more into the breach my Napoletano brethren!

Napoli head north to the eternal city to take on Lazio in the final step on the roller coaster that is our triumphant return to Serie A. The biancoceleste were not able to follow through on their amazing campaign from last season. They were almost eliminated from the Champions League during the pre-season qualification stage and then had the misfortune of ending up in a group with Werder Bremen, Olympiakos and Real Madrid. Guh. Although they were able to get some decent results in the CL they wound up dead last in the group and their European aspirations were over by Thanksgiving.

Now Lazio are just a hot mess. Coach Delio Rossi, at the helm of the good-ship lollipop that is S.S. Lazio for three years, looks like he may have finally had enough. Rossi’s been linked a few Italian sides including Napoli because of issues with Lazio grand poobah Claudio Lotito. Although he’s recently backed off on those sentiments, things are tense. The Lazio tifosi, whose shenanigans could make the San Paolo faithful blush, are threatening to boycott Sunday’s match to protest Lotito’s actions, inaction, policies… oh give’s a rat’s ass why their protesting. They’re Italian. They’re Roman. They don’t even need a reason.

Napoli’s hopes of sneaking into next year’s UEFA Cup went by the wayside this week. Udinese received the required licenses (read: kiss the ring of Sepp Blatter and Michele Platini) to host UEFA Cup matches. Which means what exactly? Seems security was ever so tight on UEFA’s second most important Cup competition final. If the authorities in Manchester, England and UEFA allow over 100,000 fans to descend into a city why even bother with trivialties such as licenses and rules anyway? Remember when Scottish fans were getting
all sorts of love in the press as being an upstanding, passionate but civilized country of football fans? Hard to justify that comment when you hear them referred to as a “pack of baying wolves,” isn’t it? I was always a Celtic guy anyway. But I digress.

Napoli can still get into next year’s UEFA Cup via the Intertoto if they can maintain their 8th place standing. A draw against Lazio will secure the position and after much back and forth from President Aurelio De Laurentis, word came out this week that Napoli will pursue the Intertoto if they can qualify.

From Serie C1 to UEFA Cup in a little over 24 months? I watched it all happen and still don’t really believe it happened. I can promise you one thing, our tifosi won’t be getting virtual bouquets of flowers thrown at them for their behavior should we make it to Europe next year. Fair or unfair our reputation preceeds us.

Half of Lazio’s side is either injured, disqualified or… they just plain suck. Of course this means it’ll be a 1-1 scoreline going into the 90th minute. Lazio haven’t played particularly well in Rome going 8-4-6 with only a +4 goal differential. Contrast that craptastic record with Napoli’s utter despicable 3-4-11 and -14 goal differential, the makings of pretty dire match are in the works. Woof.

Lazio will be without Mourad Meghni, Sebastiano Siviglia, Cribari, Gaby Mudingayi, Goran Pandev and Lorenzo De Silvestri. Wow, so they’ll have what Stefano Mauri, Tommaso Rocchi, Rolando Bianchi, and old man Marco Ballota in nets and who else? Looks like there might be a spot for my buddy Mauro who’s a lifelong Laziale from the old country. On the Azzurri side, we’ll be without the wonderkid Marek Hamsik who’s had quite an inagural season in Serie A this year. The success of Napoli’s renaissance will be determined by our young starlets Ezequiel Lavezzi, Walter Gargano, Nicolas Navarro, Fabiano Santacroce and, of course, the aforementioned Hamsik. The 20-year old Slovakian may actually wind up being the best of the bunch as he hasn’t even begun to scratch his potential or run out of skin to get more tattoos.

So savor this last match, Napoli fans. We have an opponent that is weakend, demoralized and playing in front of their own hostile fan base. European football is at stake for next year. I don’t know about you but after playing the likes of
Cesena, Ancona and Arezzo, I’m not too proud to host the 4th place side from Greece or a 3d place team from Romania in the Intertoto. Talk to me in three
years if we’re still trying to claw into UEFA via a ‘fair-play’ invitiation or via the Intertoto. For now, I’ll take it.

Probables: (N): Navarro; Santacroce, Cannavaro, Domizzi; Mannini, Bogliacino, Gargano, Blasi, Savini; Calaio, Lavezzi
(L): Ballotta; Zauri, Rozenhal, Radu, Kolarov; Behrami, Ledesma, Mutarelli; Mauri; Bianchi, Rocchi
Injured/Suspended: (N): Zalayeta, Rullo / Hamsik (L): Everyone and their brother

FORZA NAPOLI!