Napoli, balance sought: the attack grows, but the defense gets worse

Naples, 28 March 2025 - The championship break to make room for the National notoriously serves well as an example of the theory of relativity of the perception of time: very short for teams coming off a golden period and very long instead for those who have many wounds to lick. This category effectively includes the Napoli, which in the round preceding the break did not go beyond the 0-0 against Venice not only did he squander the chance to return to the top of the standings, but he also cashed in on the lead of theInter, now a +3The psychological backlash for the Azzurri was heavy, but the break served to recharge the batteries from a physical point of view but also from a mental one and right from the National great news has arrived in particular as regards the attack, the department that in recent times 14 turns dragged the team of Antonio Conte in the face of a progressive impoverishment of defensive solidity.  

The decline of defense

Starting from this last data, in the first 15 days of the championship the average number of goals conceded per match by the Napoli was of 0,66, then climbed to 0,93 in the remaining portion of the tournament that has been archived so far. The Neapolitans have basically conceded almost one goal per game, a detail that is also well illustrated by the 'clean sheet' chapter: the one found at Penzo, although very bitter if one thinks that he arrived in a race that had to be won at all costs to avoid the extension of theInter, arrived after a long wait 8 races with the door of Alex Meret always violated. Therefore, analyzing only the second half of the season, the one in which the feared decline became reality despite the lack of any midweek commitments, the Azzurri closed with a clean zero in terms of goals conceded only in 2 occasions su 10 game: in the same time frame as the outward journey, the calculation actually read 7 su 10. Important numbers and comparisons that seem to give reason to that unwritten rule in football that, especially in the long term, assigns to the defense and its solidity the main merits of what the rankings say and will say. It is no coincidence that the leadership of the Napoli in the ranking, long well 18 turns in a row, has sunk its roots right in that first half of the season with a record result for a defence that had found in Alessandro Good morning your best bulwark: irony of fate, or perhaps simply a cruel coincidence, the return of your ex Turin after a long injury 2 months coincided with the beginning of the decline of the defense, which in turn was deployed with three men to make up for several other absences in the squad. And yet, despite this decline, the Napoli to date still has the best back line in the Serie A with just 23 goals conceded: practically one of the good news that will help restart the dream of the championship after the rude awakening of the last day of the championship.

The growth of the attack

The other concerns the attack, which grew and improved in the second part of the tournament despite, to date, being only the sixth in Serie A within 45 goals scored (18 in less thanAtalanta and well 20 in less thanInter). It is precisely these merciless comparisons that contribute to taking a picture of the Italian forward department that is worse than what the pitch actually says, especially in the last part of the tournament. Just think that in the first 15 days, Napoli has collected 32 points, fruit of 10 victories, 2 draws e 3 losses: on the report 21 goal, for an average of 1,4 on average per game, with just 10 conceded (0,66 on average), of which 6 in the two hat-tricks scored by the hands of Verona e Atalanta, for a total clean sheet of well 9. We turn the page and move on to the remaining ones 14 days already gone to the archive, entrusting the floor to the numbers: 29 points, son of 8 victories, 5 draws e 1 defeat, with 24 goal made (for an average of 1,7 in competition) and 13 conceded (0,93 of average per game), compared to just 4 clean sheets. So, objectively the attack has grown in step with the contemporary decline of the defense and it is a paradox if you think that in January it said goodbye Khvisha Kvaratskhelia, the star of the championship who still today, curiously, is on the podium of the team's scorers. For a team accustomed in recent years to building its main fortunes on the prolificacy of the attack, having at this point in the tournament only one player in double figures (Romelu Lukaku, at altitude 10 goal) and know that in the meantime a certain Victor Osimhen in Turkey (so in a league that is perhaps not as competitive as the Italian one) scored more than all the offensive players in the Azzurri squad, it is quite a setback. Here, however, we return to the old football axiom, according to which championships are won by defenses. In reality, especially in the case of Napoli, the ideal would be to find the right balance between the stronghold of the first half of the season, the son of 4-3-3 and, despite the expectations dictated by theory, the most prolific team of the last part of the championship designed with the 3-5-2, giving priority to the first area. The operation of hunting for the perfect fit to rediscover the shine of the golden days is up to Tale, who during the break wondered for a long time about the formation to deploy first of all on Sunday evening against Milan, undefeated at Fuorigrotta by well 6 games. The verdict on the outcome of the choice will be discovered shortly before the challenge, but the impression is that the balance that the Napoli must (re)find that it goes beyond the simple tactical scheme with which it will be deployed from now until the end of a season split into two parts, even though the standings are still smiling and say only -3 from the peak occupied today by theInter.

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