Mission accomplished, but what an effort! The success of Naples on Chievo brought Sarri's team back to minus 4 from Juventus, a sine qua non to continue hoping for the Scudetto. No news for those who hadn't seen the game and had limited themselves only to reading the result, in reality things didn't go quite so smoothly, on the contrary: up to a few seconds from the end the film was taking a very different turn, which would fact delivered the tricolor to the black and whites 7 days in advance.
A slow, tired Naples, almost emptied of stimuli and motivations, was down against Chievo and nothing seemed able to reverse the inertia of the match. But then, as sometimes happens in football, the scenarios completely reversed and here we are to comment a blue victory, fundamental both for the classification and for morale.
"It was a race that we deserved to win, at one point it seemed haunted - Sarri's words. – We made 23 shots to one, threw 86 balls into the opposing area against 5, hit posts and missed easy goals, the team, despite doing well, was unable to get the result. The ending then gave a logic to what had been seen. Scudetto? We think from match to match, that's what we have to do." The coach's tactic is clear: avoid thinking in terms of a goal that is obviously too pressing, but that doesn't mean not trying to reach it.
Even on Sunday we saw how much Napoli suffers in matches in which they are the obligatory favourites, and after those in Reggio Emilia they were also giving away points to Chievo. In the first half, little to report except some dangerous balls near Sorrentino, in the second half instead the match exploded and gave series twists. The first in the 51st minute with the referee Manganiello decreeing a penalty for a foul on Mertens: it seemed like the prelude to the blue lead instead Sorrentino saved and from there the troubles began. Napoli got nervous and when in the 73rd minute English killed Reina with a long-range torpedo, the ghosts of defeat took possession of the San Paolo. They thought about driving them away Milik and Diawara, the first with a header to make it 1-1 (89'), the second with a screaming right-footed shot which, in full recovery (93'), made Fuorigrotta explode with enthusiasm. The Scudetto dream remains difficult but at least it is still alive: and this, given how things had turned out, is already something
