Perspective

By: Neil | October 19th, 2008

Napoli 2 Juventus 1

No doubt many Napoli fans celebrated the fact that Napoli, after Saturday night, were leading Serie A for the first time since 1992. In any case, everyone celebrated a huge win over Juventus, where our heart and character allowed us to battle back after falling behind to a nice Amauri goal.

But if last night was the drunken celebration, tonight is the less than ideal hangover: not only are we no longer in first place, but we have a whole bunch of teams within two points of catching us. From Inter on 16 points to Palermo on 12 points, there are ten teams within four points of each other. Napoli isn’t the only team that can be proud of its position in Serie A. And to make things tougher, we have Lazio away next weekend. But for now let’s talk about our entertaining victory over a Juve side that gave us a good challenge but was short on quality.

Here are the highlights. Notice how Juve only created half chances. Still, I have to give Amauri lots of credit for his goal – he is a world class player, even if he can’t decide whether he’s Italian or Brazilian. At Napoli, all of our player are certain of their nationality.

My overall impression of the game is that Napoli did a really good job of physically wearing down Juventus. We’ve also done it to Fiorentina and Palermo this year. I think it’s great that teams come to the San Paolo knowing they’re eventually going to be overwhelmed, but if we depend on outlasting our tired opponents it’s going to come back and bite us in the ass. For one, we can’t always seem to find the same energy on the road that we have at home. Second, it’s much safer to get an advantage at the start, and not get into a position where a comeback is needed, or a late winner like the Bologna game.

Rather than give a standard match report – hopefully everone saw the game, or had the chance to read a professional report somewhere – I’m going to comment on the game’s protagonists:

Marek Hamsik – I read on a soccer forum that Hamsik isn’t as good a player as everyone thinks, and that he just pops up out of nowhere to finish off the play. Well, if he can “pop up” and score just once every game, he’ll be better than the world’s greatest strikers. Hamsik has turned into a great finisher, and given his skills and physique it’s probably easier for him to score from midfield than as a striker. But there’s still more to his game than reading the play and getting himself into a good attacking position. His passing skills are great and he’s starting to learn the importance of defending.

Ezequiel Lavezzi – Napoli’s best player once again, and his ability to beat players one on one makes him irreplacable. But I’ve noticed that he sometimes attracts two or even three defenders when he has the ball, and he still tries to dribble around them. If he could learn to pass his way out of tight spaces rather than try to dribble, he would be even deadlier.

Manuele Blasi and Walter Gargano – these two established control of the middle, which goes a long way towards winning any game. Blasi is known as a tough player, but if you watch him closely he’s also very intelligent. He has the instincts of a defender, but he also has enough skill to contribute offensively. An ideal holding midfielder. Gargano is the perfect foil for Blasi – his running ability allows him to attack more frequently, and he covers important areas of the field when Blasi can’t be two places at once.

Marcelo Zalayeta: Once again Zalayeta struggled to do anything offensively. Yet his willingness to come back and win the ball, or make himself available for a pass can’t be overlooked. His work rate went a long way towards wearing down the Juve defence. It’s something he wasn’t doing very much of last year, and I think he realized that in order to get any playing time he would have to develop other parts of his game. Even if Zalayeta doesn’t score, I’d be happy keeping him in the starting lineup provided we get goals from somewhere else.

Matteo Contini – Contini has really improved since joining Napoli, and his confidence is sky high. Given that Contini is a ball-winner and not a finesse player, I’d like to see him and Cannavaro switch. Putting Cannavaro on the left would also take some of the pressure off of him.

Edoardo Reja – Didn’t make any big mistakes this game. His tactics actually made sense, and the team played a great 90 minutes. If the team is this well prepared every week, we’re going to be very successful this year.

Alessandro Del Piero – not a protagonist at all. Was very ineffective, and I think the prospect of facing Santacroce got to his head. Juve fans were upset when he was taken off, but to be fair he wasn’t doing very much out there. I think if there were decent strikers on the bench, Ranieri wouldn’t have used De Ceglie. That’s one situation where you can blame injuries rather than the manager. I think if ADP had stayed out there, Napoli still would have won 2-1, maybe 3-1.

Le Pagelle:

Iezzo: 7.0
Santacroce: 7.0
Cannavaro: 6.0
Contini: 6.5
Maggio: 6.5
Blasi: 7.0
Gargano: 6.0
Hamsik: 7.0
Vitale: 5.0
Zalayeta: 5.5
Lavezzi: 7.5

Subs: Mannini 6.5, Aronica 6.0, Denis 6.5

Reja: 7.0

I didn’t include Iezzo in the protagonists because my next blog is going to be about our keepers, and I’ll have a mini-profile on Iezzo plus some commentary about why he’s only in his prime now. Finally, here are the comments from De Laurentiis and Reja, reminding us that we need to stay grounded and that it takes a while to build lasting success.

http://www.goal.com/en/Articolo.aspx?ContenutoId=919709

http://www.goal.com/en/Articolo.aspx?ContenutoId=919566

Forza Napoli !