Naples, second half paradox: from resources to problems. The numbers of the Azzurri crisis

Naples, 18 March 2025 - From a resource to a more or less obvious problem: the Napoli and the second half, a relationship without half measures in this championship. Reducing the sudden slowdown of the Azzurri in the last half to the second half alone 10 games, in which only the following were collected 17 points, does not fully do justice to those deeper issues which the same Antonio Conte, more or less through gritted teeth, he alluded to even in the best moments, hinting at how his team was going beyond its own limits. Yet, even in the span of a single match, the Neapolitans are changing face, and curiously they are doing so now, well beyond the second half of the season, in the face of an almost perfect first half despite the legitimate running-in period to be expected at the dawn of a new project. Perhaps that injury emergency that has recently reshuffled the team's identity will also have something to do with it, abandoning (temporarily?) the 4-3-3 for a 3-5-2 which is showing lights and shadows. They benefit from it Romelu Lukaku and especially James Raspadori, the new 'odd couple' in which one complements the other, but the other certainties seem to belong to another era even though we are talking about a rather narrow time frame. Narrow, yes, but not to the point of not being able to provide a first snapshot of the full-blown crisis of the Napoli and in fact interrupted only by the breath of fresh air breathed thanks to the internal success on Fiorentina: just think of the 6 points lost by theInter, currently at the top of the list and with a margin of 3 lengths and begins to take on interesting features at this point in the championship, and even at 9 reassembled from Roma, the team most in form in recent times after starting the season on the edge of the relegation zone.

The numbers of Napoli's crisis

And to say that the 2025 of the blues had opened with 3 wins in a row which seemed to be the prelude to a good escape, perhaps almost to follow in the footsteps of what was left by the Scudetto of 2023. Instead, right at the best moment, this time the Napoli it jams with a series of thumps and above all draws, those half-defeats, as defined by Tale after it 0-0 di Venice, who ultimately risk paying a very heavy duty on the scales: for information ask the Juventus and Thiago Motta, the 'mister x' of the Serie A thanks to (or because of) well 13 draws. True, when you can't win, not losing still makes the glass half full, but if the stakes are as high as the championship then every misstep can weigh heavily: especially when the favourites start to step on the gas. And so, while the others come out of the January market more or less strengthened, the Napoli loses the symbol of the scudetto along the way, Khvisha Kvaratskhelia, and at the same time, almost like a punishment from the gods of football, he faces the first real injury emergency of his season. In this phase, the Azzurri score 18 goal, a symptom of a lively team and not adrift and, indeed, of the happy partnership between Lukaku e Breakers, but they collect a lot of it 11 in front of the sun 6 goals suffered in the previous ones 12 days. Paradoxically, the defense got into trouble when Castel Volturno has reappeared 3-5-2, a form on the most buttoned up paper, and from the infirmary he left Alessandro Good morning, the linchpin of the rearguard from the summer until the stop 2 months arrived in December due to two fractured vertebrae. Also for this reason it is impossible to attribute the decline at the beginning of the year to one or more individuals or to the same change of module, almost a predictable choice at the moment in which halfway through the season the Napoli draw two cards from the deck of unexpected events: the many injuries, almost all of which are of a muscular nature, and the transfer of their most talented player, replaced by a Noah okafor literally to be physically put back in shape. Of course, in the initial plans of the Neapolitan company it was supposed to be David Neres the new owner of the left lane, but even here fate had a hand in it with a long and complex stop that will be archived after a long and heavy stop in the area of Fuorigrotta.

Rebus module and second half problem

With the return of the Brazilian, Tale will be able to return to 4-3-3, even knowing that they would lose the tandem Lukaku - Raspadori which practically made the fortunes of the Napoli in this complicated phase, exacerbated in particular by the second half. From the last minute comebacks conceded against Roma e Lazio, curiously both at theOlympic, to the thud of As an, going through the disappointing draws against Udinese e Venice who saw the worst part of the Azzurri in the resumptions, who instead had previously built much of their fortunes precisely in the last 45' of the game. It is easy in these cases to point the finger only at a presumed decline in physical level, which in turn could give the lie in the long term to that theory that sees teams that play only one match per week as favored: paradoxically, especially from spring onwards, the opposite theory often seems to be valid. In reality, at home Napoli the light bulb also goes off with regard to attention and hunger, as highlighted by Tale: defensive blackouts, more or less contained by the usual Alex Meret, and wasted opportunities in attack in the face of the extreme cynicism that emerged in the first part of the season just when the so-called Cesarini zone was being entered. At home Napoli everything turned upside down in a short space of time and just when the rivals were entering the key phase of their respective European competitions, with more or less positive results. If this is the bad news, the good news is that the situation in the standings is still largely possible: provided that the problems during the break are resolved and that we accelerate also and above all in those matches that on paper seem within reach and that instead, and this is very recent history, turn out to be real traps.

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