Winners, or Champions Napoli overcame a two-goal deficit to salvage a 2-2 draw against AC Milan in their home stadium on Sunday in Serie A play. With the result, Napoli kept their place among the league’s top-four teams in the standings.
Matteo Politano, who plays on the wing for Napoli, and Giacomo Raspadori, who plays in the forward position, both scored for Napoli after the interval to cancel out two headers scored by Olivier Giroud in the first half of an intense encounter in which both teams dominated the play in their respective halves.
Milan is now in third place with 22 points, three points behind the team in first place, Inter Milan, and one point behind the team in second place, Juventus. Milan’s home game against Juventus ended in a 1-0 loss. Napoli is currently in fourth place with 18 points.
According to Milan head coach Stefano Pioli, according to DAZN, “two goals is too few for what we created today.” “When you’re up 2-0, you have to take the game into your own hands.
“We shouldn’t have let them score the first goal, which gave them confidence,” said the coach. It’s not like we stopped playing; rather the opposite, actually. We weren’t a pushover, but compared to how well we played in the first half, the second half wasn’t quite as strong.
The game got started to an exciting start, and Giroud had an early opportunity, but Napoli’s defence was able to clear the effort from close range that he took.
The Frenchman, on the other hand, did not make a single mistake when he broke the deadlock for Milan in the 22nd minute, when he nodded in the first goal from an assist by Christian Pulisic.
After nine minutes, he extended their advantage to 2-0 when he headed in another cross from Davide Calabria from very close range.
Napoli, who have had the most shots taken in Serie A this season with 166 opportunities before the kick-off, were helpless against Milan in the first half, but Politano’s goal five minutes after the break fired Rudi Garcia’s team into life and gave them a chance to win. Napoli have had the most shots taken in Serie A this season.
Giacomo Raspadori found the equaliser in the 63rd minute by unleashing an unstoppable shot from a free kick. Prior to that, Giovanni Di Lorenzo and Khvicha Kvaratskhelia also had opportunities before the hour mark.
In the current Serie A campaign, Raspadori’s goal was the first one to be scored from a direct free kick.
In the final minute of play, Calabria of Milan took a header that came dangerously close to hitting the target.
“It’s always better to finish 2-2 after being 2-0 down than on the contrary,” Garcia told reporters. “But it seems like a fair draw to me: AC Milan’s first half, ours in the second.”
After the Nigerian striker suffered a hamstring injury while on international duty, Napoli were already playing with only 10 players. In the 89th minute, defender Natan was given his second booking for a tackle on Luka Romero, which resulted in Romero receiving a yellow card.
After just the first 20 minutes of the game, Milan’s starting defender Pierre Kalulu had to leave due to an injury, and 21-year-old Marco Pellegrino came in to take his place.
On Saturday, Napoli will play at 18th-placed Udinese before Milan hosts bottom-placed Salernitana later that same day. Milan is now in last position.