Napoli can begin their party while the shroud still envelops Juventus. Although it wasn’t the goal that gave Napoli their third Scudetto in history, it sure seemed like it; the passion was so strong that some players could not stay on their feet. Piotr Zielinski fell to the ground, spread-eagled, on the turf of the Allianz Stadium as Giacomo Raspadori’s volley passed past Wojciech Szczesny’s legs and into the Juventus goal.
Raspadori’s goal, which gave the team a 1-0 victory, came in the 93rd minute. Napoli didn’t really need the points because they were already 14 points ahead of Lazio before the game, but after losing to Milan in the Champions League quarterfinals five days prior, they needed this opportunity to reflect on how exceptional this season has been.
The springtime trip to Juventus will always resemble a final boss confrontation. The league’s most consistent winners represent the wealthier, more influential north of Italy in football. Following a 5-1 victory at home at the beginning of this season, this was just the fourth occasion in Serie A history that Napoli defeated the Bianconeri twice.
Demons needed to be banished. Five years, one day prior, when Napoli last triumphed in this stadium, Zielinski was on the field. On that particular occasion, Kalidou Koulibaly scored the game-winning goal in stoppage time by beating Gianluigi Buffon with a stunning header. After losing to Fiorentina the following week, Napoli’s hopes of winning the Scudetto were dashed.
According to legend, they reportedly lost that championship “in the hotel,” with players despondently watching as Juventus rallied from behind to defeat Internazionale in the closing seconds of a controversial game the night before they were scheduled to meet the Viola. The team’s record-breaking 91 points’ manager, Maurizio Sarri, remembers seeing players in the stairway sobbing.
Maybe they’ll win a Scudetto this time while lounging in their own living rooms. If Napoli defeats Salernitana at home on Saturday, any lost points for Lazio at Inter on Sunday would mathematically guarantee Napoli’s victory.
Napoli can begin their party while the shroud still envelops Juventus
It’s a sweet undercurrent that Sarri should be in charge of Napoli’s main rivals as they try to break this drought. The fact that Giovanni Simeone, the striker whose hat trick helped Fiorentina defeat the Partenopei in 2018, joined them at the beginning of this campaign is also significant.
However, nothing could match the symmetry of Raspadori hitting the game-winning goal at the same end of the same stadium, almost exactly at the same time as Koulibaly did half a decade before. “Same outcome. Same minute,” the club’s official Twitter account wrote. A “different ending.”
The players and management hesitated to adhere to that message in their interaction with the media. Raspadori concurred with Luciano Spalletti that his squad “still needs to pick up a few more points” and added, “the only thing on our mind is to win against Salernitana.”
Even so, the festivities had a narrative of their own. At 2.40 am on Monday, 10,000 supporters waited to welcome Napoli’s team bus as it left Capodichino airport. In order to lead chants, wave flags, and watch fireworks, players descended from the sunroof.
It’s amazing they still had the stamina. Massimiliano Allegri tried to take advantage of Napoli’s weariness in Turin by starting with a defensively-minded lineup to stifle and wear them down before bringing on impact players from the bench, including Federico Chiesa, Angel Di Mara, and eventually Dusan Vlahovic.
The following two scored goals in the minutes before Raspadori’s winning goal. Each of their goals was appropriately denied. The sequence that resulted in Di Mara’s goal began with a foul on Stanislav Lobotka by Arkadiusz Milik, but the ball had already left the field by the time Chiesa crossed for Vlahovic to score. Juventus had no cause for complaint, and Federico Gatti should have been dismissed for striking Khvicha Kvaratskhelia in the opening frame.
