Fiorentina 2 Napoli 1

By: Neil | January 30th, 2009

The best part about this game was seeing 18 year old Luigi Sepe, who looks like he’s still 15, make his Serie A debut after our number three keeper Gianello went down with an injury. But before I recap the Fiorentina game, I must apologize as I will not be able to do a preview for Udinese. I’ve had a very busy week, and between now and Saturday afternoon I have a million things to do. In any case the game is Saturday at 6:15pm CET, 12:15pm ET, or 9:15am PT. There should be some TV coverage and hopefully someone else can provide details.
As for our most recent loss, it would be tempting to look at our last five games, in which we’ve won 3 out of 15 available points, and conclude the team is slumping. But in the last two losses to Roma and Fiorentina I’ve seen some signs that the slide could be halted.

In Wednesday’s loss to Fiorentina the approach was positive, and the team looked alert and precise. However, too many things went wrong and despite a good showing we couldn’t leave with a point.

First thing that went wrong: Gianello’s injury. Even though he wasn’t strong against Roma, he made a great save on a Gilardino shot and was still a much better option that Primavera goalie Luigi Sepe. You can’t blame Sepe for anything but it’s still hard to win Serie A games with an 18 year old emergency callup as your keeper. Having Gianello, or Navarro, or Iezzo would have completely changed the game.

Second thing that went wrong: More set piece inadequacy. On the first goal it’s easy to blame Pazienza who couldn’t stop the ball despite getting a foot to it. But Pazienza was pretty much the only Napoli player actually looking at the ball. Everyone else was either looking at a Fiorentina player or just kind of hovering around. So when the ball deflected off Pazienza, it was very easy for Santana to scoop it up and fire it home without being troubled. Pazienza again played like shit, but it’s not fair to make him a scapegoat on the goal when he was paying more attention than everyone else.

Third thing that went wrong: Montervino coming on. I have no problem with Montervino getting garbage time minutes when the team is losing 3-0, but to ask him to play for a half hour with the score tied is scandalous. I’m glad he picked up a red card in injury time because it means Reja won’t be able to field him against Udinese. I agree that Pazienza need to come out, but we should have put on Denis or Russotto and switched to a 3-4-3, or at least tried anything else besides Montervino.

Fourth thing that went wrong: No penalty call for a Fiorentina handball inside the box. It was hard to say if it was a handball or a ball-to-hand, but I’ve seen penalties called for less blatant handling offences. I don’t think the ref screwed up a call or anything like that, but it seems like recently when Napoli has needed a bit of luck it just isn’t there.

But to be fair Vitale’s goal was a slice of luck. I don’t think Frey expected a shot on target and he was caught out of position. In fact it may have been an inaccurate cross that somehow ended up on net. Here are the highlights of all the goals and more:

Basically, if any of the four things mentioned above had gone differently I think Napoli would have earned a point. Fiorentina did have an edge in possession and territory, but Napoli held strong until Montolivo’s 79th minute winner. Even though we conceded twice our defence looked better than it did during the Chievo and Roma games. Aronica looked OK, and if Contini isn’t on his game then Aronica might be a better option. The offence is still a concern – Vitale’s goal was a bit flukey, and we still rely on Lavezzi and the possibility of a penalty to get really good scoring chances. Hopefullly when Datolo gets here – and I have no idea when that is – he can put a spark into our offence. And we’ll be getting Hamsik and Gargano back, but Hamsik has been struggling lately and Gargano is better defensively.

Oh, and Daniele Mannini was banned for a year for showing up late to a doping test last season. The suspension was thrown down by the World Anti-Doping Agency, and basically everyone in calcio is furious and can’t understand why the ban is so severe. Every Serie A and B game this weekend, from Friday to Monday, will kick off fifteen minutes late to protest the decision. I don’t have too much to say about the decision. Ya, it was ridiculous but there’s nothing that can really be done. There are always appeals, but it would take a significant development for the appeal to go through. The people who made the ruling aren’t likely to just change their minds.

That’s all for now, but I’ll be back sometime Sunday with a report of the Udinese game. After that, there’s another midweek game: Juventus in the Coppa Italia. I believe the game is at the San Paolo, and the winner goes on to play Lazio in the semi finals. We get Juventus in Serie A about a month after that at the Stadio Olimpico in Torino. Forza Napoli!