Juventus-Napoli Game Summary

By: fortunato | March 17th, 2008

Our boys gave it the old college effort against the hated Juventini but they lost it in the last few moments of the game. Napoli showed moments of matching the Juventini but inevitably Juve’s depth and determination won out. Here is a recap of some of the key moments from the game:

Napoli started off the game quite well and it appeared that they held the balance of play for the first fifteen minutes or so as evidenced by a corner, a free kick in close proximity, a nice attempt by Hamsik and a yellow card shown to Trezeguet. The bianconeri found their legs after though as Del Piero was involved in a couple of nice plays. In the 21st minute Lavezzi and Hamsik combined to come close but the bianconeri start rolling a little more but lacked finishing; scariest of all came in the 29th on a Del Piero penalty kick that sailed high which almost hit Domizzi’s hand in the penalty area. Del Piero came close again in the 37th minute off of a Nocerino cross that lead to a misdirected header by ADP. Napoli started showing their youth by exhibiting some undisciplined play as evidenced by yellows piling up with Pazienza in the 31st minute, Savini in the 39th and Santacroce in the 43rd minute plus their defensive play was becoming very questionable with the exception of Santacroce who was a stalwart the entire game. The first half concluded 0-0 with both teams enjoying their share of ups and downs.

In the second half, Juve came out attacking with Del Piero feeding Trezeguet and then involved in a near miss on a penalty kick in the 2nd minute. Lavezzi tried to respond with a couple of attacks of his own that didn’t come to fruition. Gianello played a nice game and made a nice stop on Nedved in the 7th minute off of a feed from ADP. In the 16th minute Cannavaro received a yellow and in the 17th Gianello came up with a nice save against a Tiago shot. In the 18th minute for some reason Reja substituted Bogliacino for Hamsik. I didn’t really understand that move since I thought Pazienza should have gone off instead and soon after Tiago missed a golden opportunity in the 18th minute after a Gianello save off of ADP. The next ten minutes were pretty even but Juve started smelling blood as in the 33rd minute when Gianello stopped a Iaquinta header. Juve was rewarded in the 43rd as Nedved’s left foot pass found ADP, who cleverly stops it with his chest and flips it to Iaquinta who buries it. Napoli did have their chances from there but couldn’t capitalize. The game ends 1-0 but given the odds faced by the team and the environment they were in, the team didn’t play a bad road game at all. A tie would have been ideal for us going back to Napoli to play Fiorentina.

The stars of the game for Napoli were Santacroce, Gargano and Gianello. Fabian is proving to be the steal of the January transfers and he impressed even my Juventini friends and Walter is small and feisty but he has the heart of a lion. Gianello is making a lot of people start questioning why they went out and got Navarro and also some are asking Gennaro who? We may have a goaltending controversy here. I undertand Iezzo is not far from returning.

My disappointments were Calaio (who after the 15th minute of the first half seemed to disappear after a nice bicycle kick attempt), Cannavaro (who has seemed out of sorts for the last few months) and Pazienza who still hasn’t done anything to convince me he was a worthy signing and just continues to rack up yellows.

The time has come now to put the pedal to the metal. Coming back home to play Fiorentina is a must win for us. The team has to be a little more disciplined (they racked up four yellows) and somebody needs to step up and help Lavezzi out. The defence needs to rally around Santacroce and not necessarily Cannavaro. What’s wrong with you Paolo? Are you waiting for your brother to come over and help? Enough is enough, a big effort and result is needed in Napoli come Wednesday.