The Game of the Season, Part 1

By: Neil | October 17th, 2008

What: Napoli vs. Juventus
Where: Stadio San Paolo
When: Satuday, 19:30, 2:30 Eastern, 11:30 Pacific
TV: Fox Soccer Channel (live) or an internet stream

This game won’t make or break Napoli’s season – you can’t put too much emphasis on one game out of 38, especially this early – but Juve enters the San Paolo as a wounded animal fighting for it’s life, and it’s up to Reja’s boys to deliver another massive blow to Juve’s season.

What has gone wrong with La vecchia signora this year? Every Juve fan will blame their team’s terrible perforance on injuries

http://juventus.theoffside.com/team-news/juventus-napoli-the-other-derby-ditalia.html

but the real truth is that Juve are a sorry team who have finally stopped getting the protection of the referees. I laugh whenever Juve fans talk about all their scudetti, because if their championships weren’t indirectly bought with Agnelli’s money, they were handed to them by scandalous refereeing decisions over the course of a season, or sometimes both.

Napoli is a real team with a proud tradition of character, culture, and honour. Those are qualities that money just can’t buy.

Since most of Juve’s players are ~~hurt~~ afraid of playing Napoli, I have no idea who they will field. Check out the above link to the Juve offside page to find out which assortment of bench warmers and spitters they’re going to throw at us.

The only Juve person I really like is Claudio Ranieri. Napoli fans will recognize Ranieri as the manager who replaced Maradona with a young Gianfranco Zola. I followed Ranieri a lot when he was at Chelsea, slowly building the team that Roman Abramovich would turn into EPL winners and Champions League finalists. Ranieri did most the ground work that made Chelsea competitive before Abramovich’s money took over. While he’s not in the same class as Mourinho or Capello, Ranieri is an accomplished manager whose teams are always tough to play against.

But as good as he can make Juve, Napoli are still better. Iezzo is returning from injury, leaving only Bogliacino and Pia in the treatment room. And aside from Hamsik and Gargano, who both played 90 minutes for their national teams midweek, the entire team is healthy, rested, and ready to lay a beating on Juventus.

Probably Napoli lineup: Iezzo, Santacroce, Cannavaro, Contini, Maggio, Blasi, Gargano, Hamsik, Vitale, Deniz, Lavezzi

A new phenomenon to hit the city is a Pizza Lavezzi – an L-shaped calzone with salami, ricotta, chili, and mozzarella inside.

http://www.goal.com/en/Articolo.aspx?ContenutoId=916719

With a new snack named after him, look for Lavezzi to be inspired as he usually is. If anyone has had a Pizza Lavezzi, please leave a review below.

Last year this fixture ended 3-1 for Napoli. Here are the highlights of that game which is always fun to watch: