What more could you ask of your sporting sibling than the performance Giroud turned in against Napoli on Sunday?As players swapped shirts and fans began to make their way to the exits at the Stadio Diego Armando Maradona, Olivier Giroud ran a hand over his beard and listened to an interviewer from Dazn complimenting his Italian. His eyebrows raised at the question that followed: “You’re a bit like Zlatan [Ibrahimovic]: you give instructions, you encourage, you motivate your teammates. So now that he’s back, who plays?”It was an unexpected line of enquiry on a night when Giroud had, once again, shifted the course of Serie A’s title race, scoring the goal that delivered Milan victory over Napoli just as his...
Just when it seemed they had blown another chance to go top of Serie A, the Spaniard sank Lazio to set up a seismic meeting with Milan on SundayLuciano Spalletti called it a “crossroads” in Napoli’s season. After their elimination from Europe on Thursday night, his team had no dreams left to pursue beyond a Scudetto bid that appeared to be fading. Top of the table at the start of December, the Partenopei had since fallen behind both Milan clubs and were starting to feel Juventus’s breath on their necks.Results were trending in the wrong direction. More importantly, so were performances. Napoli drew away to Barcelona at the Camp Nou but their 4-2 defeat in the return leg was more...
Five of the top six played at the weekend but none won. Napoli may yet be the beneficiaries of the latest slip-ups in title race Massimiliano Allegri looked like a man clutching at straws as he stared down the lens of a TV camera on Friday night and insisted that the single point his team had collected from a home game against Torino could help them qualify for the Champions League. By Sunday night, his words sounded prophetic.Despite throwing away a lead in the derby, Juventus improved their advantage over fifth-placed Atalanta, reduced the gap to title favourites Inter and did not lose ground to any direct rival. Five out of Serie A’s top six played over the weekend, but...
The Napoli stalwart, headed for Toronto, scored a penalty but Edin Dzeko’s goal kept the title race wide openAt least Lorenzo Insigne will not need to be taught another lesson by his children. He had barely made it back to his car after Napoli’s win over Torino in October when his sons, eight-year-old Carmine and six-year-old Christian, warned him that they would be getting the football out and showing him how to strike a penalty as soon as they got home.Maybe they had some good pointers. The tame effort saved by Vanja Milinkovic-Savic in that match was Insigne’s third missed spot-kick of the season. Since then, he has converted four out of four. After Inter’s Stefan De Vrij kicked the...
Perennial runners-up face leaders Inter on Saturday as quest to win Serie A for the first time without Maradona gathers paceLast Sunday, amid jubilant scenes at the Pier Luigi Penzo Stadium, Napoli scored a 100th-minute goal to seal a 2-0 win over Venezia, cutting Internazionale’s lead in Serie A to a single point. The following morning, tickets for their next game – a potential title showdown at home to Inter – went on general sale.Almost immediately, Napoli’s ticket website began to gasp under the sheer volume of traffic. Disgruntled fans complained to the club after spending hours refreshing and rebooting the page, sitting in virtual queues of about 15,000. The stadium box office was a similar story, as restive queues...