The defeat to Salernitana on Sunday seems to have left the players for Napoli feeling disheartened.
After being held to a 1-1 draw by Salernitana on Sunday, Napoli will have to wait a little longer to clinch their first Serie A championship in 33 years. Salernitana’s result ensures that.
Inter Milan’s previous victory against Lazio, their closest rivals for the league title, by a score of 3-1 meant that runaway leaders Napoli needed to win in order to clinch their third consecutive league title with six games left in the season.
And when Mathias Olivera put the home team ahead with a header just after the hour mark, Naples believed that the city’s long history of disappointment was finally going to be put to rest.
But the long-awaited celebration of winning the Scudetto will have to be postponed for at least a few more days, thanks to a stunning goal scored by Boulaye Dia six minutes before the game’s end, which ensured Salernitana would escape with a point.
However, the upcoming round of midweek matches may finally bring Napoli’s long wait for glory to a successful conclusion.
The club managed by Luciano Spalletti is now 18 points ahead of Lazio, but Juventus has a chance to cut the deficit to 17 points and move into second place if they win the late match on Sunday away at Bologna.
It is possible that Napoli may already be champions by the time they take the field against Udinese on Thursday night, depending on the outcomes of that match as well as the games between Juventus and Lazio on Wednesday.
In any case, a victory in Udine would guarantee that Napoli’s current talents will follow in the footsteps of Diego Maradona, who guided the largest club in southern Italy to their two prior league victories in 1987 and 1990.
After the opening kickoff, Napoli took the initiative and nearly took the lead when Victor Osimhen came close to putting the ball in the back of the net off of a cross that was provided by Hirving Lozano. The delirious crowd was decked out in blue and white.
However, Osimhen, who is currently the leading scorer in Serie A, was the only threat posed by the home team during the first half, which turned out to be a frustrating affair because Salernitana defended deeply and largely kept Napoli at bay.
The audience’s level of anxiety rose throughout the game until Olivera scored the game’s first goal, which resulted in an outburst of jubilation both inside and outside the stadium.
Fans inside the stadium had began lining up outside the stadium over five hours before the game was scheduled to start, but their efforts were for nothing since Dia silenced the whole city with his stunning performance.