Napoli - Roma preview

By: Joe | October 18th, 2007

The Derby del Sud resumes in Serie A as Napoli and Roma once again take the field at the Stadio Olimpico on Saturday afternoon. The two sides represent the biggest and most successful non-Northern Italian sides. See how I avoided using the words “Roma” and “Southern Italian” in case anyone should get riled up. Unfortunately, the match will be played only in front of Roma’s season ticket holders. We can thank Lega Calcio for this one. Once again, everyone is afraid that the traveling tifosi will cause havoc. It wasn’t that long ago that Napoli and Roma tifosi had a fairly amicable relationship. Apparently, someone thinks otherwise.

Roma started the season playing their typical free flowing football and taking maximum points from Palermo, Siena and Reggina. It wasn’t so much the three successive victories that were impressive, rather it was the return to the last year’s form and their ability
to pick apart defenses with a series of overlapping runs and great midfield play. Then Roma dropped points by surrenderring late goals to Vicenzo Iaquinta of Juve (on some ahem… questionable decisions from the refs) and an 80th minute pk against Fiorentina. The match against Fiorentina really proved Raymond Domenech has no clue as Sebastian Frey played out of skin. It all went completely pear shaped when Inter came to the Stadio Olimpico and dismantled the giallorossi 4-1. The match got completely out of hand shortly after Ludovic Guily got himself sent off. I don’t care if you are at home, you cannot go down to 10 men against Inter and hope to come away with a result. Sanity was restored last week when Roma took apart 3-0 on the road.

Meanwhile, Napoli have started the October death march in the worst possible way. First came the punishment of having to play the Genoa match behind closed doors. Napoli then shot themselves in the foot by surrenderring an own goal and the late match winner when backup keeper Matteo Gianello was rooted to the spot and not in position to parry the late goal. Napoli then traveled to the San Siro, and despite the visitors section being closed Napoli still had between 5,000-8,000 supporters, and were absolutely run over by the nerazzurri. Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Julio Cruz and the rest of the Argentine national team simply steamrolled Napoli in the first half. Although, Roberto “Pampa” Sosa was able
to score a late goal, the result was never much in doubt as Napoli simply had too much to do and not enough talent or luck to pull off a result. There was also the mess last week with Ezequiel Lavezzi, Sosa and Maurizio Domizzi. It’s obvious things are flaring up with the players but PierPaolo Marino says there’s nothing to worry about as everyone gets along swimmingly.

National team duty

Coach Edy Reja will likely shake the lineup a least a little for the match due to players fatigued from traveling/playing for the FIFA break. Rumours have indicated Samuele Dalla Bona may get his first Serie A action of the year and Mariano Bogliacino is likely to start again in midfield. Bogliacino needs to return to his form of last year or he’ll quickly become surplus and get shipped out in January. There are also reports Reja may either bench my two favorite winger whipping boys in Mirko Savini and Gianluca Grava. Erminio Rullo and Gyorgy Garics would be their logical replacements.

Walter Gargano isn’t set to return to Napoli until tomorrow. Gargano wasn’t used
at all in Uruguay’s two matches. Good news for the paranoid in us…not so much if
you are “Mighty Mouse” Gargano himself, I guess.

Marek Hamsik played the full 90 and scored his first international goal for Slovakia in their qualifier against the mighty, mighty San Marino who’ve been outscored 52-2 in their 11 Euro 2008 qualifiers. He also played the entire match in their friendly against Croatia (a 3-0 loss). In fact, Hamsik has played 10 games in 40 days (6 for Napoli, 4 for Slovakia)
and only was substituted for once. Methinks the boy may not have much in the tank.

Gyorgy Garics’ Austrian team tied a team-record setting winless streak with their 3-1 loss to Switzerland. On the plus side, Garics played the full 90. Yah!?! Austria got off the schnide by defeating the Ivory Coast on Wednesday in Innsbruck and, again, Garics went the full 90 at right back.

Paolo Cannavaro got to ~~play with his brother in an Azzurri jersey~~, ~~lead the backline against South Africa in Siena~~, train with the Azzurri “B” side and uh… get some nice pictures of him in an Azzurri shirt. Hopefully it won’t be the last time, Paolo.

Napoli will host Juventus next Friday, travel to Firenze four days later then host Reggina and travel to Palermo on November 10 to end this nightmarish run of fixtures.

Last five matches:

Roma (W-D-D-L-W)

Napoli (W-D-W-L-L)

The match will be shown live on RAI International and on tape delay on Fox Soccer Channel. Check your local listings.