It’s getting easier and easier to stay up there, where there’s also a lucky star that never stops shining. Napoli goes against everything and everyoneunleashes only the strength of an aware group and to which everything succeeds even in difficulties. He does it with ease even in front of a Sassuolo organized and bold.
Spalletti’s team against Sassuolo puts two men on the top step, two forwards like Osimhen e Kwara that in the end they decide that victory is the only law which applies to them themselves and to continue the march towards the Scudetto. Thirty meters ball and chain, the Georgian evades three of his opponents and puts Consigli in the corner with his right foot. A cameo, the most important of all the others, the number 10 goal in the debut season in serie A.
His bench stands up and applauds himand it is not the advantage that excites Spalletti’s cold gaze with eyes wide open in the void but the value of a goal wanted and achieved with technique and elegance, as we have seen champions of the caliber of Baggio or Kakà do in their heyday. The dialogue with the Nigerian comrade is continuous, constant. The crosses that arrive for Osimhen are brushstroke trajectories to the centimetre, but the Napoli centre-forward then decides that he must take the scene alone with a forceful goal directly from the out to the left of Consigli. AND statistics say that of the 18 made so far in the league, that of the Mapei Stadium is the seventh in a row: never anyone like him in the history of Napoli in Serie A. He may not reach Higuain’s record (36) in the season of Sarria’s wonders, but he will come close.
Sassuolo is a team that doesn’t get discouraged, she is used to looking her opponent straight in the face, taking her time and space in the middle of the field, being found there where her opponent commits even the slightest frivolity. Take home zero points but a post and a goal disallowed for offside by the Var.
Laurienté is an arrow, two or even three must go in his area to cover the patch of ground that he skilfully hides with feints, and when his shot with a sure shot hits the post, Napoli breathes. Not too much because a few minutes later Defrel makes fun of Kim and he too goes without fail. The ball comes out of a breath. The race is intense, lively. But Osimhen commands it, always. Full court, in attack but also in defense to put his long and agile leg to ward off dangers.
When he too, on Kvara’s usual assist, jumps higher than anyone but hits the wood of the door, the wood count is even. The thrill always comes from the usual Laurienté who closes the gap at the end of the first half, but the goal is disallowed due to offside by Defrel. Napoli have the strength to manage in the second half, Spalletti shuffles the cards and is already thinking about the challenge of Champions League on Tuesday in Frankfurt.
Osimhen finally comes out and Simeone, another talent from the Napoli team, doesn’t make him regret it, he too scores in added time but his goal is disallowed for offside. Spalletti leaves the field embracing all his heroes: a special gift for him on the night he crosses the finish line of a thousand benches. There twentieth victory it’s one more record before another night on the stage of Europe.