The Comeback Kids

By: Christopher | October 30th, 2009

That’s what they’re all calling us now. No Just kidding, I don’t know a single Napoli fan that lives near my desolate town, but if there were maybe that’s what they’d be saying? I don’t know about everyone else but I’m still on a high from the Milan game, or just high in general, but that’s a different story. Is it just me or is our season just getting more and more epic with every game? napolijuvemasacot First the late Bologna win… the epic Fiorentina victory (I don’t want to toot my own horn here but I remember calling a victory there, and would have been right on goal differential if Quags could take a damn penalty. So for what it’s worth, I’d like to put my footballing dignity out there again and predict another victory- I’ll explain why later), and then we all know how last game went. But this time it’s Juve at the ol’ Olimpico, paying a visit to our pals Ferrara and Cannavaro…ahhh what would you do for some of their defensive talent infused in our back four (Ferrara at 41 > Contini? Hm.)? If Paolo makes it back we can see a little sibling rivalry going on, he’ll surely want to impress. Juventus and Napoli are both coming off some mixed results in terms of results and form. Juventus recently thrashed the hell out of Sampdoria after some shaky performances (the difference is they win with shaky performances, but that’s just what the top teams do). Let’s go over some key match ups.

4-2-3-1 vs. 4-2-3-1

Well we’ve both been through the formation changes, unfortunately for learning new systems during the season ours had to accompany a coaching change too. Ours is in it’s fetal stages, theirs is growing into freakin Achilles. Anyone remember that bullshit I was spewing in one of my first posts about the rebirth of the trequartista (in Serie A)? Well apparently that fad is on the outs now, the trequartista experiment has failed for a at least a couple of teams- Milan, Lazio have found themselves migrating to a 4-2-3-1 (even though it hasn’t done them too many favors in the depths of the table… Pandev and Ledesma anyone?) Juventus started out with the 4-3-1-2, utilizing Diego, who at the beginning of the season looked like he was going to replicate his Werder Bremen success and THEN some. This was looking awesome for my fantasy team (go Diego, just don’t score tomorrow), but it wasn’t to continue. Teams learned if they glue a couple guys to mark the shit out of him, the Juve three pronged attack would be more like a spoon. Hence, we have the switch to the 4-2-3-1, aka a way to have Diego and former treq. backup Giovinco, playing at the same time, along with the very in form Mauro Camoranesi, who when he can play more than one game in a row, is just a dominant, underestimated force to be contended with, AHHH! Ours is still getting it together, and it will be interesting to see how Cigarini and Denis’ performances will impact Mazzarri’s selection. I think you could make a case for both of them being in the line up, Cigarini for Pazienza and Denis for Quags. For them, there is little question as to who’s up top (although Del Piero could reportedly make an appearance), Amauri despite an early goal drought started scoring, said he was going to score more, and is scoring more. That is some cause for concern, but then again so are most strike forces when lined up on paper to our back four. I really feel that Mazzarri is getting the best out of these guys though. The Milan game showed that despite the early trembles, the defense held its own for large portions of the game. I suppose part of this was due to our consistency in possession and attack, something Donadoni could not produce.

Finishing vs. Buffon

Damn, if Dida was frustrating, imagine Buffon. Despite needing knee surgery, he’s in that type of fantastic form that has a tendency to single handedly win Juventus games. As much as I love Quags, we may need that little bit of something magical to beat Buffon, and what do you know, of all people to show some of that finishing magic, it’s Denis! Fuck, if he can score, put him out there.

Perfect Timing?
I’ve seen a good amount of Juve’s league games, some of the Champions League matches they played, and nearly every game Buffon was key in the last 10 minutes. For some reason or another, Juve have a tendency to take their foot of the pedal at this time of the game. It is actually somewhat funny to watch, it starts at the top with the strikers who lose possession, the DM’s make bad passes, and all in all it ends up being a shit show in front of Buffon who comes up with some serious saves to maintain the status quo of the game. Team quality doesn’t necessarily matter either, it happened against Bologna, a very late header in stoppage time, and it very nearly happened against CL group underdogs Maccabi Haifa (who they actually play again next week which could be an additional advantage for us) as they barely held onto their 1-0 lead towards the end of the game. Unfortunately, this graph isn’t the greatest representation of my point, but you can sort of get the gist, most goals conceded are before the breaks.

mazzarri_presentazione_officialpresentationnapolicoachoctober72009

Our goals conceded under 15 is sad- looking at this through the preview function, the bar is so long you can’t even see the tally (Don’t ask don’t tell). But if we can hold off early pressure, and be patient and attack at the right times I think we can win this one. Again, not a completely logical argument for thinking we can win away against Juventus, but the type of spirit Mazzarri has our team playing with, well it has carried over to me a bit, and I can’t help feeling optimistic against any opponent.

Grosso vs. Maggio
Everyone knows the greatest weakness of Juve is at the fullback position. It’s what exposed their CB’s last season, and although it’s looking better this year with Grosso and Caceres, I think it’s still something that can be exploited. I’m looking for Maggio to have an explosive game. It will be a very interesting battle between he and Grosso, who can sometimes be caught up field in vulnerable situations. If Maggio finds the right balance between going forward and and defending, good things will happen. On their left, Grygera, probably the weakest link in the line up due to Caceres’ broken nose, can be easily exposed. Some reports have us lining up a 3-4-3 which I think could work well in this context of working wing play. It would also obviously allow Denis to get on the field as well, which up until a recently I decided is a good thing.

Draw up the game plan Mazzarri!

Forza Napoli!