Fundamental success for the Neapolitans, the streak of three consecutive defeats interrupted. And in the end the furious coach from Livorno pushes the president’s son…
On the most Juventus Sunday in its history (“Winning isn’t important, it’s the only thing that matters”), Napoli comes out of the match against Bologna with the best possible news: three points. The crisis is averted, due to trials and psychodramas it will have to be reviewed and if the Neapolitans were to take full spoils even in Florence, difficult, Max Allegri would have obtained what he wanted and that is to postpone the first financial statements to the November break.
At Maradona he decided to switch Lobotka, but the other news is that from here on out it won’t be easy for anyone to keep Costantino Favasuli, 22 years of technique, physicality and audacity, on the bench. His was the assist for the Slovakian, but already before that, by dint of tears and percussions, he had created furrows in Bologna’s weak flank, also giving comforting signals to Roberto Mancini who is looking for names to start the national team.
Narrow victory, but only in the scoreboard. Having gotten over the initial scare of a header from Theate who had beaten Milinkovic Savic, canceled out due to a micro offside, Napoli played football at times with order and conviction and at other moments with an exasperating horizontality. In the end he deserved to take all the stakes, having risked nothing or almost nothing (5 shots conceded compared to 61 in the first three days) and having made very small mistakes until the winning pocket.
For fans of criticism of Allegri always and in any case, take note of his team’s center of gravity in the two halves: 56.56 meters before the break (42.96 for Bologna) and 59.31 in the second half (39.44). Other than low block or anything like that. Napoli played the game, not always in a convincing manner, despite the injury emergency and the absence of an assistant striker to replace Hojlund when the Dane misfires.
The center of gravity of Naples and Bologna (taken from www.legaseriea.it)
And here we enter the main scene of the Neapolitan evening, Allegri’s escape into the locker room after an error by Lucca on the counterattack, the casual crossroads with Edoardo De Laurentiis and the swing to get rid of the latter’s attempt to hold back the furious Max. Let’s be clear, nothing happened. But seeing the coach already on edge, we are only in mid-September, is not good news for the Neapolitan fans and represents the Neapolitan summer perfectly: a compromise.
