Seperating the wheat from the chaff

By: Joe | December 1st, 2007

Avoiding the drop is always the first priority for a newly promoted side. It’s obvious Napoli’s expectations are a little bit higher. The side is looking to be in the Champions League in three years and this year’s objective is to establish an equal footing with Serie A’s “second tier” squads: Sampdoria, Palermo, Udinese and, this week’s opponent, Atalanta.

Napoli travel to Bergamo Sunday afternoon searching for only their second home win to take on a side that finished 8th in last year’s Serie A and are undefeated at home thus far (2-3-0). Napoli are level on points with Atalanta although they have a game in hand due to the shenanigans that occurred a few weeks ago. Luigi Del Neri took over Atalanta after guiding (?) Chievo Verona all the way to Serie B and replaced the now ousted Stefano Colantuano. The Bergamo side continue to soldier on, however, relying primarily upon Cristiano Doni, who returned to Italy after an unsuccessful year in Spain playing for
Mallorca. Doni returned to the club he starred in from 98 to ‘03 and has led his side with his bruising tackles (7 yellows this season), goal scoring (6) and attempting to talk sense to the Atalanta ultras (1). Doni normally sits in front of the striker and has the freedom to move around and direct traffic.

Speaking of ultras, Atalanta’s two curvas, sections of the Stadio Atleti Azzurri,
usually populated with ultras will be closed. Way to deal with a problem. If we just keep ultras from showing up then everything will be ok then, right? Cretini.

Atalanta are banged up and I’d love to think that would give Napoli the upper hand. Unfortunately, the situation was very similar a few weeks back when we went to Sicily and lost 2-1 to Palermo. Nonetheless, MF Diego De Ascentis (9 appearances) and DF Claudio Rivalta (11 appearances) are both injured, striker Riccardo Zampagna (10 appearances, 3 goals) is sitting this one out due to “disciplinary measures,” and FW Simone Inzaghi is suspended. Napoli is 33-23-18 all time against Atalanta, so we have that going for us…which is nice.

Napoli are sitting well on the injury front as Manuele Blasi has returned to the squad and Emmanuele Calaio has not, as of yet, strangled Coach Edy Reja and found himself in the same boat as Zampagna. Yellow card accumulations will likely come into play next week against Parma as Cannavaro, Lavezzi, Domizzi, Savini and Gargano are one bad tackle away from missing the next game. It’s likely Reja will trot out the same lineup that won at
home last week against Catania, although La Gazzetta dello Sport is reporting Gyorgy Garics will replace Gianluca Grava. It’s a good thing the curva’s will be empty. Otherwise, someone might get hurt by one of Garics’ crosses.

A repeat performance from last week would be welcome, but Atalanta’s attack, particularly with Doni, is bound to cause more headaches for our backline and keeper Genarro Iezzo than the anemic Catania frontline did last week.

Stats:
last five matches: Napoli (W-L-D-L-W 7G,5GA) Atalanta (D-W-D-W-L 8G, 7GA)
Atalanta home record (2-3-0 8G, 5GA) Napoli road record (1-2-3 11G, 9GA)
1st half goals Atalanta 4G, 5GA Napoli 5G, 5GA
2nd half goals Atalanta 12G, 9GA Napoli 16G, 10G
Yellow/Red Atalanta 45/3, Napoli 31/0

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