On the eve of Napoli’s make-or-break Champions League game with Chelsea, Antonio Conte said the worst is “senza fine”.
He tried to stay optimistic but it was, in his estimation, “endless.” When Juan Jesus handled a Chelsea free kick early and Napoli gave away another costly penalty, as happened in Copenhagen a week ago, it began to feel infinite.
How might Napoli respond? Injuries have ravaged this team, reducing it to bones so bare, a Neapolitan nonna would struggle to make a stock out of it. “We thought we’d seen it all in December,” Conte said, mistakenly thinking the crisis had peaked. “Then a player emerged and became decisive for us. That player, David Neres, underwent ankle surgery this week.”
Seeing Conte touch his thigh in the press conference before the game, a reporter worried the coach had picked up a knock, too. Looking at his squad, Conte tried not only to manage expectations but reset them altogether. “If we were to start the season now everyone would put us between eighth and 10th. That’s how tough the situation is.”
The transfer market has not made it easier. A soft embargo was placed on Napoli. They could not buy until they sold. Plans to loan Kobbie Mainoo as cover for Billy Gilmour and Frank Anguissa were scuppered by Manchester United’s decision to sack Ruben Amorim. In the meantime, Lorenzo Lucca and Noa Lang left for Nottingham Forest and Galatasaray. Giovane, one of their replacements, wouldn’t be eligible until Napoli reached the Champions League play-off round. If Napoli reached the play-off round.
The options available to Conte were so limited, he leaned on the Maradona. Not the Maradona. But the city, the stadium, its people. He needed all of them. A “blue wave” to sweep in from the bay and overwhelm Chelsea’s kids.
Before the game, in the Curva B, the ultras held up banners with the number 12 on them. Napoli’s 12th man. “We are at a clear man advantage,” read another bed sheet unfurled over one of the concrete belts that girds this exposed and rusty old ground. They certainly made up the numbers, releasing a roar at the end of the Champions League anthem that, not for the first time, probably provoked the Richter scale around Vesuvius and the Campi Flegrei into a violent scribble.
Napoli fans proclaim themselves the 12th man (Tullio M. Puglia/Getty Images)
The trouble is Napoli have felt down to 10, nine, eight, even seven men this season, and to find themselves down a goal after Enzo Fernandez converted his penalty could, to borrow one of Conte’s phrases, have “floored a bull.” Belief in their ability to come back should have been thin on the ground.
Napoli won the league with the sixth-best attack in Serie A last season. They signed Lucca, Lang, Rasmus Hojlund and Kevin De Bruyne to change that. But sixth it remains. De Bruyne, who set up a couple of Hojlund goals on his Champions League debut at the Maradona, hasn’t played since October. Romelu Lukaku played his first minutes of the season in the weekend’s 3-0 defeat by arch rivals Juventus.
The “make the net bulge” and “score a goal” banners in the Curva B looked forlorn. But the team drew encouragement from them and the ultras got to turn them right-side up and give them a ripple.
Antonio Vergara is not Sofia Vergara. But the way he got away from Moises Caicedo and eluded Wesley Fofana for Napoli’s equaliser was a thing of beauty. Hojlund, who had been pressing the life out of Chelsea goalkeeper Robert Sanchez, then blasted a Giovanni Di Lorenzo cut-back past him.
Conte has described his team as a crew of sailors on a ship in the high seas. They’d taken on water. A mast was split in two. But it looked like they were heading, improbably, into the play-off port.
Then they ran aground again. Joao Pedro’s equaliser left everyone in the Maradona with a sinking feeling. Napoli were down. Conte turned, desperately, to Lukaku who forced a late save from Sanchez. But they were out.
On the one hand, this has been an unlucky Champions League campaign for Napoli. They did not have a single player sent off last season. Di Lorenzo, the skipper, was then given his marching orders 20 minutes into their Champions League debut away at Manchester City.
They took the lead in Eindhoven only for Alessandro Buongiorno to score an own-goal. It put PSV’s tails up. Napoli were still in the match at 3-1 only for Lucca to be sent off. The game got away from them and they lost 6-2.
It made Napoli cautious, too cautious, when Eintracht Frankfurt showed up at the Maradona, an opponent that had conceded five against Liverpool and another five against Atletico Madrid. All Napoli could muster was a 0-0 draw. Conte had, by this time, lost De Bruyne to injury and Anguissa, one of the main threats in a goal-shy team.
Awful at Benfica, they still should have beaten Copenhagen. Even Conte admitted there was no excuse. Napoli were decimated but still found themselves a goal up and playing 11 v 10 only for a clumsy Buongiorno challenge to let Copenhagen back into the game.
Romelu Lukaku looks disconsolate after Napoli’s Champions League exit (Andreas Solaro/AFP via Getty Images)
Injuries undoubtedly weakened Napoli. The cases of Lang and Lucca, in particular, also raise questions about recruitment as neither were able to replace Khvicha Kvaratskhelia or the likes of Giacomo Raspadori and Giovanni Simeone. An already meek attack was allowed to get meeker.
Red cards and silly penalties only exacerbated an already bad situation. As such the sporting director, Giovanni Manna, and the players bear as much responsibility as Conte even though, inevitably, his record in the Champions League will again come into focus.
This was not the Napoli he envisioned in August, a fluid 4-1-4-1 with De Bruyne, Scott McTominay and Stanislav Lobotka vibing off Lukaku. It was not even the convincing Super Cup winning B-side he invented with Lang, Neres or Eljif Elmas either side of Hojlund, who is, at least, in double figures for the season.
But City and Chelsea aside, it wasn’t a hateful eight of Champions League fixtures either; Benfica and Sporting are not top of the league in Portugal. Frankfurt are eighth in Germany, winless in seven in all competitions.
When you consider some of the other teams that made the play-offs — Bodo/Glimt, Qarabag, Club Brugge and Olympiacos — Napoli should feel pangs of regret.
Going out in the quarter-finals against Milan two years ago was a source of great disappointment to owner Aurelio De Laurentiis. It didn’t matter that Napoli, a club with little European pedigree beyond the 1989 UEFA Cup, had never been as far in the competition before. It didn’t matter that they were in the process of winning the league for the first time in 33 years.
It still aggrieved De Laurentiis and affected his relationship with Luciano Spalletti. Throughout this season, De Laurentiis has been effusive in his support for Conte, taking to social media to post praise after wins.
It remains to be seen if he will stay as sympathetic, given Napoli’s title defence has faded and their Champions League campaign finished in the space of a few days.
When it was put to Conte on Amazon Prime that the campaign had been a disaster, he replied: “Disasters are other things. We’re talking about sport here. Everyone tries their best here and in a year and a half we have won a league title and a Super Cup. We need to choose our words carefully and make the right assessments.”
But for now, at least, the worst isn’t over. It still seems endless.