Catania Match Report & Other News

By: Neil | May 26th, 2009

Catania 3 Napoli 1
This game meant something: yet another road loss. The game was destined for a 1-1 draw until Martinez went down in the Napoli box in the 88th minue giving Catania a penalty. The foul was committed by Santacroce, who stepped in front of Martinez from behind to claim possession of the ball just as Martinez went to shoot. As soon as Santacroce went by him – maybe there was contact – Martinez instantly fell to the ground. You can’t really determine the nature of the contact from looking at the TV highlights, but if it was a penalty it was definitely a soft one. Mascara buried the spot kick to give Catania the three points. The highlights are worth checking out, as Bogliacino and Falconieri both scored beautiful goals from distance, with Falconieri’s coming on the half-volley.

No Auriemma highlights this week:

Napoli didn’t play a terrible game or anything but it seems the last three weeks Napoli haven’t got the breaks. Two weeks ago Lecce got a soft penalty to get back in the game, last week Torino scored from their only two real chances, and this week there’s another soft penalty. This late in the season, with a league position lower than expected, it’s harder to regroup after key incidents go against you. The loss to Siena was the only recent game where Napoli played poorly and deserved to lose, so these last three weeks have been frustrating to watch.

It also looks like Lavezzi is going to be sold to Liverpool for a fee of around 22m euros. This move, if it goes through, will have been forced by Lavezzi and his agent. The club obviously wants to keep him, but the player is tired of being a celebrity in Napoli and wants more money. I hate to admit it, but if he’s not going to give his best effort in a Napoli jersey selling him is the best thing. There’s something wrong with the agent’s logic, though. He claims if Napoli turn down Liverpool’s money, it means the club has the finances to give Lavezzi a pay raise. Just because a club isn’t selling its best players doesn’t mean that it’s rich enough to increase wages. We all known DeLa has plenty of cash anyways, but the point is that Lavezzi and his agent are forcing the club to sell him to Liverpool or else Napoli will have an under motivated player on a long term contract.

Reports also indicate that Napoli will replace Lavezzi with the Brazilian striker Nilmar, who has also been linked with Palermo. The fee is rumoured to be around E16 million, which is a really, really big risk. It’s true Nilmar has a good scoring record in Brazil – he’s actually included in the Brazil squad for the Confederations Cup – but he struggled to earn a starting spot at Lyon during his first spell in a European league. It resembles the German Denis signing from last summer – both are younger players who have bagged a lot of goals in their domestic leagues and broken into their national teams, but both players had less than impressive spells in Europe before returning to South America. I’m confident that Nilmar is better than Denis, but from a business perspective it’s a similar risk: if Nilmar doesn’t live up to expectations, Napoli will have overpayed yet again for a South American striker who won’t be in demand very much.

If the team does sell Lavezzi, I’d rather see the club spend E15 million on three players. Get a good striker for E7 million, a left sided defender for E5 milllion, and a backup right defender for E3 million. I think that would strengthen the team much more than bringing in one really expensive signing who could be a flop. Rather than trying to undercover the next big star, Napoli should be concerned with creating a solid all around team that has both depth and a bit of star power. The model Napoli should follow is the one used by Genoa and Fiorentina. Both those teams have a core of important marquee players surrounded by an excellent cast of supporting players. Both those clubs seem to get their players for relatively cheap – obviously the better players are more expensive – but overall, Fiorentina and Genoa do a great job of bringing in the right player for the right role, and they don’t break the bank doing it. That’s the approach Napoli should try.