Napoli and Inter’s contrasting fortunes
Napoli 0–3 Internazionale, the final scoreline read. If you happened to miss the match, you’d be forgiven for thinking it was a stroll in the park for Inter; on the pitch it was anything but.
The hosts happened to lose a few matches at the Stadio Diego Armando Maradona this season. Visitors Lazio, Fiorentina, and Empoli have all managed to defeat the scudetto holders on their home turf, but this was different. This was the biggest scoreline, yet it was probably the strongest performance out of them all for the Neapolitans.
Walter Mazzari’s return to Napoli, on the surface, seems like a movie producer sanctioning a sequel to one of his biggest hits due to a lack of ideas. When in doubt, go back to what worked best. And Mazzari at Napoli, version 1.0, was a beautiful from rags to riches story, with three protagonists (Edinson Cavani, Ezequiel Lavezzi, Marek Hamšík) reviving a southern underdog to go head to head with the much richer forces of the north. If his second stint is even half as good as that, then Napoli’s president, Aurelio De Laurentiis, will consider it a success.
Now Mazzari is a statesman of calcio. Before, he was bullish, tense, with a career on the rise. A decade of — failure is not quite the right word — but certainly disappointments, seems to have mellowed him. He seems eager for a redemption arc, at the place where his star shown brightest.
Against Inter, his new Napoli produced sequences reminiscent of their free-flowing football of the previous season that managed to take them all the way to the scudetto. Luck tends to even out during the season, but on Sunday night, it certainly eluded them. They were mostly on top in the first half, but failed to score, with Matteo Politano’s beautiful shot that hit the sidebar the most notable of their misses. The second half produced no turn in Napoli’s fortunes, with their level dropping along with the result, but it still took some incredible reflexes from the outstanding Yann Sommer to keep them scoreless.
The final result may seem harsh, but it says much about their defensive woes as it does about their profligacy in front of goal. Last season, an all-conquering Napoli were still capable of the odd collapse, like their 4–0 mauling at the hands of AC Milan. Their weakness now was their weakness then: off the ball. If Mazzari’s going to steady the ship, the free flowing football needs to return, and it is starting to, but his biggest task will be shoring up the defense. The fixture list is unforgiving, with a trip north to fierce rivals Juventus up next, yet a top four finish is still easily within Napoli’s reach.
Inter will surely be watching closely next weekend, and cheering on i partenopei to pull the brakes on Juve’s scudetto chase. A highly rotated team managed to come back from three down in the Champions League last week to snatch a draw, but Inter’s starters in Serie A meant business. The credit in the Simone Inzaghi era always goes to the collective, and rightfully so, but it’s hard to escape the fact that Inter have some outstanding individual performers.
Where to begin? Perhaps with Hakan Çalhanoğlu. Initially misunderstood by Milan, an uninspiring spell as a mezzala under Vincenzo Montella was followed with him shunned to the left wing for a lack of better alternatives under Gennaro Gattuso. It would take the arrival of Stefano Pioli and a change of formation that saw him back to his number 10 position for Çalhanoğlu to truly come to life in Milan.
No sooner had he finally “arrived” than his contract was about to expire. Milan let it run down, Inter picked him up, and the rest is simply credit to his temperament and work ethic. Initially judged as lazy and inconsistent in his early calcio days, Çalhanoğlu instead became the embodiment of how focus and work reaps results. His maturity process, both on and off the pitch, has been laudable. Starting last season, he dropped the back and forth teasing between himself and his ex-Milan teammates, fully ignored the Milan tifosi, and instead humbly worked his way into the regista position. Now, he’s easily one of Europe’s best, a metronome of consistency and focus, with his tackling just as good as his technique. His goal to give Inter the lead was an exquisite finish; the sort of goal that serves as a bookmark between chapters in a player’s career.
But Çalhanoğlu was hardly Inter’s only key player. Lautaro Martínez is another with a claim to the label of Serie A’s best player, let alone Inter’s. Not only is he leading the capocannoniere race with 13 goals, but his all round game is envious. If his beautiful first assist was chalked off for a marginal offside, with his cheeky header to set up Marcus Thuram unfortunately going to waste, his contribution to the second goal certainly didn’t. It started with his tackle to win back the ball, and culminated with his low driven cross to assist Nicolò Barella.
Barella, the Sardinian is another wonderful footballer with his confidence through the roof. His touch and then drop of the shoulder before the finish tells the tale of a player, and a team, at the top of their game. Inter had to work hard for this victory; Sommer certainly had to make important saves, and the ever reliable Matteo Darmian and Francesco Acerbi were as solid as always, but in the end, they managed to make the win look so easy. A hallmark of a great team.
When two goals up, Inter elevated to a new level. They took full control of possession, produced near total football while dressed in Orange, and their third goal, a clever low grounded cross from Juan Cuadrado to set up Thuram, came at the end of a beautiful passing sequence. Was this Inzaghi’s Inter or Rinus Michels’ Clockwork Orange? For a brief, fleeting moment, it became easy to confuse both.
Make no mistake, this Inter team were Champions League finalists, and are scudetto favorites, for a reason. Tactical intelligence and technique; personality and flair; brilliant individuals and a great collective; they’re the real deal. And they don’t have an irreplaceable individual, thanks to an enviable squad depth. Against Napoli, it became pretty obvious that, right now, there’s no stopping them. Their march towards la seconda stella, the second star to symbolize a 20th Serie A title, goes on, with only Juventus seemingly capable of keeping up.
