Champions League Final: Napoli 0 Lazio 0

By: Neil | November 22nd, 2009

Before the game Napoli manager Walter Mazzarri told his team to treat the game “like a Champions League Final.” Well, if you saw the game – and I really hope you didn’t – you know that neither team treated the game like any kind of final. I don’t recall one good Napoli scoring chance and aside from Mauro Zarate there wasn’t a single player doing anthing noteworthy in the offensive zones. Even though Napoli’s performance was concerning, the one point was more than Fiorentina, Genoa, Cagliari, and Bari earned so our position in the standings doesn’t really suffer. Things aren’t so bad after all.

I was reluctant to include the highlights because it’s mostly broken plays and half chances but there might be some people out there who enjoy boring 0-0 Italian stalemates.

Here’s some bonus footage of Mazzarri explaining how Napoli had a great second half:

I honestly don’t know how to do a write up of a game with so little action. It’s not like there was all kinds of great defending that I can comment on. To be fair Lazio defended well for the whole ninety minutes, but Napoli didn’t put up much of a fight. On the other side Rinaudo was the only Napoli player who might score higher than a 6.0 in le pagelle.

Man of the Match has to be Mauro Zarate. He spent most of the game trying to work some magic all by himself and in the second half he looked like the most dangerous player on the pitch. For a while I was genuinely worried he might get Lazio a smash and grab win but for all his skill in dribbling through the Napoli midfield and defence he never got himself a great scoring chance. The ref also deserves some mention. It’s not often that the ref puts in a better performance than the players, but Saccani managed just that on Sunday.

I will say this however: when Mazzarri said that Napoli would treat the game like a CL final, I was expecting a smooth Napoli side firing on all cylinders. About the 80th minute I realized that Mazzarri had bullshitted us about how Napoli would play… but why? The only thing I can think of is that he’s giving more priority to Thursday’s Coppa Italia match against Cittadella and next Sunday’s trip to fifth place Parma. For those of you who have followed Serie A for a long time, you’ll know that Guidolin knows what he is doing and that Parma’s position in the table is no fluke. Also the Coppa Italia represents a great way to qualify for Europe if Napoli can reach the final, so it’s reasonable to assume that Mazzarri will be taking both those games a lot more seriously.

Napoli’s record under Mazzarri is now 3-3-0 for 12 points from a possible 18. If Napoli had played at this clip the entire season, the team would now be in 3rd place with 26 points. Although the last two games maybe haven’t gone as planned, these 0-0 results are a sign that our defence is moving in the right direction. The team isn’t leaking goals like earlier in the season and Rinaudo looked very good on the left, i.e. much better than Contini.

Up front I’m wondering how healthy Quagliarella is. If he’s injured, give him some time off to let him heal properly. I hate when players get a long term injury because they tried to play through a short term injury. If the game was important it might make sense but these games won’t really define Napoli’s season.

I will conclude with an abbreviated version of le pagelle: every Lazio player falls between 5.5 and 6.5, and every Napoli player falls between 5.5 and 6.5. There was really nothing separating the two teams and by the end of the game the individuals simply blurred together to make 22 men chasing a ball on a pitch. I should have slept in.

Next up is Cittadella on Thursday. I have no idea if I’ll be able to catch the game or not, but I can guarantee one thing : it won’t be another boring 0-0 draw. Forza Napoli!