Having already sacrificed the Coppa Italia and the Champions League this season, a heavily rotated starting XI from Napoli was then knocked out of the Europa League after RB Leipzig comfortably won at the Stadio San Paolo. Through it all, supporters of the Partenopei barely cared, the collective hopes and dreams of the entire fanbase seeing them buy into the “Scudetto Pact” their beloved team had made in pre-season.
Indeed, players like Kalidou Koulibaly, Dries Martens and Elseid Hysaj all turned down lucrative offers to move on in the summer, agreeing to stay and finally mount a credible challenge for the Serie A title. From the outset, they played with a newfound determination, fighting back in difficult circumstances that would have normally have been enough for their confidence to crumble and setting an unbelievable pace at the top of the table.
They lost to Juventus and then stumbled against Fiorentina, but still bounced back. Reeling off 10 consecutive victories during December, January and February, it seemed that this time Maurizio Sarri’s men were for real. Napoli weren’t just winning, they were demolishing opponents, handing Lazio a 4-1 thrashing and smashing five unanswered goals past Cagliari, the Coach’s complaints about always playing after Juve sounding hollow as Italy’s two best teams matched each other win by win.
Then Roma delivered a perfect performance and won 4-2 away in Naples, a shocking result that threatened to blow the title race wide open. Suddenly a four-point advantage was gone and a 0-0 draw with Inter – not ostensibly a bad result – allowed the current champions to finally overtake them and move into top spot for the first time in 2017/18.
To further compound the issue, Juventus play their game in hand this week, a rescheduled fixture against Atalanta coming on Wednesday before they take on relegation-threatened SPAL on Saturday evening. By the final whistle there, the Bianconeri could move seven points ahead of their rivals and if they manage to do so, it will be then that we learn whether those summer promises made by Napoli amount to anything tangible or if it was all just a fanciful dream.
Sunday sees the Partenopei travel to Sassuolo, while the following weekend sees them play before Juve for the first time as they welcome Genoa to the San Paolo. If their title hopes are not to be over before Easter, winning those two games – even if it only manages to keep them one point behind the leaders – is essential.
With the international break looming, Juve themselves finish off this month’s commitments by taking on a resurgent AC Milan, and Gennaro Gattuso’s side would love nothing more than inflicting a mortal wound on the Old Lady. But if the champions arrive at that game with a comfortable lead over Napoli, there will be no pressure on Max Allegri’s men to win and the Tuscan Coach has shown over the last four years that he is a master in such situations.
“We have to take it one step at a time because Napoli are right there, they have a great chance to win the Scudetto because there’s still a head-to-head match,” he told a press conference on the eve of the Atalanta game. “We have a lot of difficult matches, so we need to think about what will happen tomorrow, we need to bring home three points.”
That ability to live by the cliche of taking things ‘one game at a time’ is how they managed to stay within striking distance as Napoli rampaged through the first two months. It is – much like grinding out a win while playing poorly – also a necessary skill for any team hopeful of lifting the ultimate prize at the end of a long campaign.
Napoli showed their mettle in a surprisingly tough win over SPAL last month, but they must now realise the importance of their next two matches. A poor result like the one against Roma can happen to anyone, but it must not be compounded by a slump that allows Juventus to hammer home their advantage.
While Maurizio Sarri has made mistakes as discussed in detail here, his players seem to understand the situation. “We’ve got to stay calm,” urged hometown hero Lorenzo Insigne recently, and club Captain Marek Hamsik reminded his team-mates this week that “there are 30 points up for grabs and anything is possible.”
There are, but for Juventus and Napoli, the next two weeks look set to decide what has already been the tightest title race Serie A has seen in years. Let the games begin.
