AS Roma coach José Mourinho is now far from the best in the world, but he still has the ability to hold back stronger teams. The away match, which almost caught Napoli, was also good.
On the 30th (Korean time), Napoli, who played the 20th round of Italian Serie A 2022-2023 at Stadio Diego Armando Maradona in Naples, Italy, won 2-1 victory over AS Roma. Napoli reached 53 points, widening their gap with second place Inter Milan to 13 points. The cruising toward victory continues.
The power of the two teams was more spread just before the game than at the beginning of the season. Napoli are unscathed, while Roma have a power gap due to Giorginio Wijnaldum’s injury and Zeki Celic’s punishment.
Roma’s biggest problem was Nicolo Chaniolo. He is a member of Italy’s national team and one of Rome’s leading stars, but in the winter transfer market, he faced a confrontation with the team saying he would go to another team, and faced a game against Napoli, and was eventually excluded from this game. There was no problem with the starting lineup, but there was a big difference in the quantity and quality of replacement cards. Eduardo Bové, who was put in at the last minute by Mourinho, was 21 years old, and Benjamin Tahirovic and Christian Bolpato, 20 years old, all players who did not immediately feel power. On the other hand, Napoli’s starting bench member Giovanni Simeone, who was substituted, scored the winning goal. It can be seen that the difference between the players was the difference between winning and losing. 메이저사이트
Roma played a fairly equal game against Napoli on the day, with 43.4% possession and 11 shots-to-11 shots. Mourinho’s one-point approach worked. In the first half, they thoroughly maintained their dominance. Roma striker Tammy Abraham is a player with power and speed that makes Kim Min-jae and Amir Rahmani burdensome. In addition, as tall midfielders Brian Cristante and Nemanja Matic were placed in front of Roma’s fast-footed and tall three-back, Roma dominated in height.
Based on the 3-4-2-1 formation, Roma sometimes operated like a 5-4-1, inducing Napoli’s attack with monotonous crosses. Kroos could have been blocked by all the Roma centre-backs. In order not to fall into a trap, Napoli persistently tried to open up Roma’s gaps with passes and dribbles, but in the end, there were few decisive chances other than Victor Osimen’s first goal through a cross in the 17th minute.
Coach Mourinho’s second half match also worked. At the start of the second half, left wingback Leonardo Spinazzola was removed and Stefan El Sharawi was put in. Placing the scoring winger El Sharawi at left wing-back is a technique that Spalletti has developed since his days as Roma manager. From this point on, Roma blatantly increased the number of early crosses from the right. One of them tripped over El Sharawi’s foot and the equalizer broke out.
But Mourinho’s counterattack ended there. Because it was an intense game, both teams had to use a lot of replacement cards, and the difference was great in the quality of the replacements.