Napoli 3 Atalanta 1

By: Neil | April 12th, 2009

No, this wasn’t the final score, but the final count for shots on goal. If every shot on net had gone in – and with Navarro in goal that was always a possibility for Atalanta – there were still 3 Serie A games last weekend with more goals. To be honest, I’m still looking for confirmation that the match actually took place. My live internet feed went down at halftime, and I thought they might have called the game off because nothing was taking place on the field. It was so bad I’m not even going to post any highlights this week. If you want to look over a few minutes of a 0-0 game with no offense or defence, you can go to youtube yourself.

I was hoping that Napoli could finish off the season strong. Maybe finish a few points shy of Europe, and then at the end we could tell ourselves that if just one or two games had gone differently we’d be back in Europe next season. But this is looking less and less likely. The Don is turning into a draw specialist, which is not good for the points total. In the four games since he took over, Napoli has accumulated four draws. If we had lost two of those, but won the other two, Napoli would have six points and be looking at the table to see which teams need to be caught. As it is, we’re still looking for our first win under the Don. A few blogs ago I wrote that Donadoni would turn many of Napoli’s losses into draws, but I never imagined he’d turn some wins into draws as well. This game was there for the taking, and Napoli was content to play a football version of endgame where the same chess pieces are moved around in a circle. I was hoping for one clumsy challenge that might spark some extra curricular activities, anything that would make the game remotely worth watching. But out of our two enforcers, Contini was suspended for five yellows, and it was Blasi’s first game back from a similar suspension.

Napoli’s three shots on net over 90 minutes averages to one shot on net every thirty minutes. In a thirty minute time frame, Napoli and Atalanta averaged 1.33 shots on net. By comparison, in a thirty-five minute time frame in today’s Reggina-Udinese match, there was an Udinese missed penalty, a Reggina sending off, a Reggina missed penalty, and then two late strikes from Floro Flores (ironically a Napoli native) to give Udinese a smash and grab win.

Let’s just all forget about this one, and eagerly await next week’s trip to Cagliari, which will be more exciting provided there is a kickoff.