Meeting Napoli with Juventus was waiting for a boxing match for the title. Champion and challenger, face to face. The trophy is not awarded immediately after the battle, the rules are not the same, but this duel delineates the trends with the prospects. Ideal moment for intermediate pins.
Napoli plays - Juventus wins This sentence can briefly characterize Serie A over the past few years. While everyone admires the attractive game of the team Maurizio Sarri, wards Massimiliano Allegri demonstrate the maximum efficiency.
Napoli again played better: 67% possession of the ball, 15: 6 on strikes, 7: 4 on the shots on target, a colossal advantage of Baricentro (63 meters against 36, that is, the Neapolitans acted much higher than the opponent). The hosts confidently passed two-thirds of the field, demonstrating a sharp draw of the ball. On the last third of the field began Juventus.
Mentality is the key to success Coolness. Perhaps the main impression of the game Juventus. Allegri understood that it was not easy to compete with Napoli in the middle of the field, but Bianconeri, like no one knows how to play the second number, it is enough to recall the passage of Barcelona in the quarter-finals of the Champions League. While the filled Sao Paulo vainly tried to inspire his and press on the opponent, the players of Juventus confidently defended, finally calmed down in the second half. Only really big teams can do that, and Napoli, in order to become one, lacks a champion mentality. The game put is great, but the team of Maurizio Sarri in the decisive matches is consistently inferior, and this is psychology.
"Corriere dello Sport" on the eve of the game considered how many champion titles the players of Juventus and Napoli. Score - 81: 7 in favor of the Turinians. Confidence in the field is provided by a colossal amount of achievements.
Defense did not fail The defense of Juventus at the beginning of the season looked like a problem line. Bonucci left with Dani Alves, Bardzali is getting old, there are nuances for other players. Fears were partially confirmed, for example, in the match with Sampdoria (2: 3), but against Napoli the defense played exemplary, and Juventus missed in Naples for the first time in 20 years. They took the form of Benatia and De Chillo, justified the output of Asamoah, Chiellini same - a sign of quality with all its scraps. How many of the 15 Neapolitan blows were really dangerous? Two, maybe three - here already on the alert was Buffon. At the gate of the Rhine at times it became much hotter.
Of course, not only the ABCD quartet (such a replacement for the Air Force trio, although not the fact that this combination will still appear in the base). Three opornika rarely go to the start of Juventus, but in Naples it was appropriate.
Beginners are accustomed to the compliments of the selection of Juventus and Allegri, who neatly brings the newcomers to the base. If at the beginning of the season turintsy basically played with the composition, left from the spring, then for the main match of the first round came out immediately three recruits: De Chillo, Mathewidi and Douglas Costa. None of them failed (although De Chillo confronted Insigne, the most dangerous player of Napoli), and Costa became one of the best at all - it was the ex-miner who started the effective counterattack. He also has 5 successful dribbling attempts, the best score in the match. Douglas gained confidence, he does miracles with the ball, and works diligently in the defense, which for him is generally atypical. How long will this happiness last?.
Reservation. Of course, not everything in turintsev perfect: Bernardeski rarely plays, from Hededes because of injuries are going to refuse. These are details. The main thing is that selection ensures Juventus the necessary depth of composition.
Napoli is still tired There was something that was feared: the pretty Neapolitan team ends gasoline. He suffices for single jerks on the type of the second half with the Miner, but the regular rolling out of rivals, as it was at the beginning of the season, no longer exists. The victories with each round became more strained, to defeat the same monster as Juventus, it was completely impossible. The game of Napoli after the break gave a hopeless. The company grass-roots combinations did not have enough fiction and energy, and switch to simplified football with canopies in the penalty team, Sarri does not know how to ban at least because of the anthropometry of his players.
Where are you, Dries Mertens? A reactive Belgian, who has worked wonders recently, does not score more than a month in the championship. Here it is - the significance of Milika's trauma, which in itself is not stronger than Mertens, but would become an alternative for rotation. You can recall the absence of Gulam: Mariu Rui, who played well in the rank-and-file matches, here he was disappointed, having missed Higuain.
Hamshik is not the same?.
Captain Napoli is having an unsuccessful season. This is not news, it is enough to recall at least two matches with Shakhtar, when Hamshik did not remember much from the positive side. In most of the championship matches Marek is also not enchanting, and his replacement around the 60th minute has become a tradition. Against Juventus Hamshik was not the worst, but was not the best - so-so characteristic for the long-term team leader.
To the note: in the previous drawing of Serie A the Slovak has 12 goals and 11 assists, now only 1 + 1. Recession due to age? In any case, he stepped in at the most inopportune moment, exactly when Napoli ripened to claims for the Scudetto.
Higuain was hungry. That's all right.. With health too - do not forget that Gonzalo could completely miss this match because of the operation on his finger, but the trauma of Mandzhukich left no choice, and the forward did not disappoint. Higuain is merciless to ex-clubmates, now he has five goals in five games against Napoli. The hatred of the stands of San Paolo only added strength to him, and the presence at the stadium De Laurenti's - a special motivation. In the decisive episode, the Argentine did everything perfectly: opened, accelerated, in time and accurately struck - flying in a desperate subcategory Culibaly did not have a split second.
If you unwind the film a couple of months ago, then the frame will get a completely different Higuain - the one that at the beginning of the season was almost a burden for the team and naturally finished badly to the bench in matches with Torino and Olympiakos. Being in the reserve quickly cleared his brains, and now Gonzalo gave out a five-match series in the championship. Here's who would ideally approach the hashtag #HungrierThanEver, but it took one in the social networks of Bonucci.