NAPLES. Napoli resumes the road interrupted with the home defeat suffered by Spartak Moscow and liquidates Legia Warsaw (3-0), albeit with some difficulty. To break down the defensive wall built by the Poles it takes a one-two made by Insigne and Osimhen, the two fittest men of the team. A few seconds from the end of the match Politano then thinks about rounding off the victory with the third goal.
The turning point comes after an hour of play during which Napoli builds a lot but does little. Once again Osimhen is decisive, it is no coincidence that the race takes a turn in favor of the Azzurri immediately after his entry into the field. Spalletti keeps him on the bench for almost an hour, but then realizes that the decisive contribution of the Nigerian is needed to overcome the resistance of the Poles. The attack of the lightweights of Napoli, in which Mertens returns to the role of central striker with Lozano and Insigne on the sides, creates a good number of scoring chances in the first part of the game, but a little due to imprecision in the conclusion, a little ‘due to the ardor with which he fights the defense of the Poles, he fails to realize the volume of play clearly higher than that of the opponents. Michniewicz’s team is filled with advanced midfielders and half-strikers who are forced to play a role of containment when Napoli’s action starts and the lack of habit of playing such a role determines an almost total dominance of the game of the blues. The Poles are therefore forced to concentrate almost exclusively on the defense which holds quite well when the Neapolitans try central percussion but which swerves on more than one occasion when the game of the hosts widens on the two flanks and the ball ends up between the feet of Lozano and Insigne.
In the second half Spalletti breaks the delay and after 12 minutes sends Osimhen on the field in place of Lozano. The game takes a decisive turn with Napoli closing the Legia in their own penalty area and constantly approaching the goal that Mistza defends with his teeth, making a series of decisive saves on the conclusions of the Azzurri strikers. To unblock the situation, however, we must wait for a stroke of genius from Insigne who on 30 ‘receives the ball from the right from Politano and without thinking about it, deflects the ball back and sends it to the back of the net. Only 4 more minutes pass and Spalletti’s team closes the game. This time it is the award-winning company Insigne-Osimhen to get a hand, with the captain throwing the Nigerian to the right. Osimhen enters the penalty area moved to the right and bags with a diagonal that passes between the post and the goalkeeper. The game basically ends here. The third goal scored by Politano with a shot from the edge of the penalty area comes a few seconds from the end and only serves to make the haul more consistent and, in a long and complicated group, even the goal difference can have its importance.