Napoli 0-Siena 0: Game Review

Our boys took on 13th place Siena at the San Paolo on Sunday in front of about 40,000 fans with an opportunity to jump over their promotion cousins, Genoa, with a victory coupled with a Genoa loss. Napoli manager Edy Reja decided to start ex captain and Serie C1 original Francesco Montervino at midfield in the absence of suspended Manuele Blasi. Daniele Mannini started in the place of also suspended Walter Gargano. Previous midfielder, now striker Mariano Bogliacino started once again alongside of fellow South American Ezequiel Lavezzi after his heroics the previous week at Parma.

The Partenopei began well, with Mannini forcing a save out of Siena goalkeeper Alex Manninger with a left-footed shot from the edge of the area after five minutes. Soon after Gyorgy Garics then fed Lavezzi, whose shot from 15 yards drifted just wide.

Manninger again had to be alert just before the quarter-hour mark to deny Mannini when he tried his luck from distance. Lavezzi then had another go at finding a way past Manninger two minutes later but his left-footed cross-shot evaded his team-mates and went just wide.

Siena had lots to play for in thinking back to their previous match when they lost 1-0 at home to a 10-man Genoa team but they started rather slowly and it wasn’t until the 20th minute when they mustered their first noteworthy opportunity when striker Massimo Maccarone fired in a shot from the left which flew narrowly wide following great work by midfielder Houssine Kharja.

Napoli then saw the energetic Mannini pass up a great opportunity midway through the opening half when he found himself presented with a shooting opportunity inside Siena’s six-yard box but could not find the target. Soon after defer Fabiano Santacroce sent a 10-yard header over the crossbar off of a corner as Reja’s side continued to search for the opening marker.

Siena’s Swiss striker Mario Frick came close to breaking the deadlock 11 minutes before half-time but saw his shot cleared off the line by Mannini. Close call!

Napoli had the first chance of the second half when Garics latched onto Lavezzi’s assist and produced a fine volley from 10 yards but it failed to test Manninger who was there to make the save. Lavezzi then failed to make the most of a smart counter-attacking move just after the 60 minute mark when he over-struck his pass to Pampa Sosa (who substituted Montervino), who was well placed and unmarked.

The Partenopei continued to push for the winner and saw another opportunity go a miss when midfielder Marek Hamsik missed a simple tap-in from close range after Bogliacino’s brilliant left-footed shot from the edge of the box had hit the post. This was a simple tap in. Huge wasted opportunity (see the video)! Bogliacino then came close in the 79th minute off of a Hamsik’s cross but this time the shot went wide.

The Partenopei suffered a scare six minutes from time when Siena substitute Cristian Rigano sent in a cross which found its way into the net via the leg of Garics, but the goal was disallowed for offside against Rigano.

Siena again came close to snatching all three points three minutes later when Andrea Rossi blasted in a left-footed shot from 25 yards but Napoli goalkeeper Gennaro Iezzo got down well to make the save.

The statistics all favored Napoli who held 59% of the possession and had 10 corner kicks in total while Siena had zero. This was a very winnable game for our boys but unfortunately something was a miss and the boys just couldn’t do it which is unfortunate since Genoa lost to Empoli (yes Emoli) and a win here would have seen us take over 8th place with 49 points but instead they sit at 47 points, in 9th place, one behind Genoa and will make their way to Torino to play the Grenada next Sunday.

Category: Team News

Tags: Game Review, Napoli, Siena, Team News

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