Juventus deserved to lose Sunday night’s match against Napoli.
Frankly, they deserved to lose it in far uglier fashion than they ended up losing. The 2-1 scoreline wasn’t in any way representative of how
badly Juve deserved to lose. It was a miracle that they entered the half only 1-0 down, as Napoli missed some huge chances in front of goal before and after their seventh-minute opener.
This all came down to an awful decision by Juve manager Luciano Spalletti, who in this game decided to compensate for the absence of Dusan Vlahovic by using Kenan Yildiz as a false nine. It was a complete disaster, and essentially gifted an entire 45 minutes to the hosts — and when you play against a team coached by Antonio Conte, that’s suicide.
Spalletti quickly abandoned the experiment in the second half and Juve played measurably better — not that that was a high bar — and equalized just before the hour on what really ended up being their only good passage of football the entire game. But any chances of stealing points at the Maradona, where they hadn’t won since 2019, were again scuppered by the manager. Spalletti didn’t capitalize on the game’s momentum, and with 12 minutes left it was won of his own men, Weston McKennie, who attempted a headed clearance only to put the ball right onto the forehead of Rasmus Højlund to provide the final margin.
But this team is going to take some long moments in the coming week to reflect on just how they managed to play so poorly against a team that had some major injury problems and was about as vulnerable as they could have been. If they don’t, the rest of the season is going to be a major disappointment.
Spalletti was dealing with injuries on both ends of the pitch, as Vlahovic was joined on the shelf by Bremer, Federico Gatti, Daniele Rugani, Carlo Pinsoglio, and Arkadiusz Milik. He sent out the team’s usual 3-4-2-1 setup. Michele Di Gregorio started in goal, seemingly confirming his place as No. 1 after some questions over the last week Mattia Perin deputized for him while he was out sick. Pierre Kalulu, Lloyd Kelly, and Teun Koopmeiners formed the defense. Andrea Cambiaso and Juan Cabal were the wing-backs, with Manuel Locatelli and Khéphren Thuram playing in the double pivot. Francisco Conceição and Weston McKennie slotted in behind Yildiz at the top of the formation.
Conte’s injury issue was in the middle of the park. He had four first-team midfielders on the shelf, leaving him desperately thin in the engine room. Kevin De Bruyne, Andre Frank Zambo Anguissa, Billy Gilmour, and Miguel Gutierrez were out, as was first-choice striker Romelu Lukaku and goalkeeper Alex Meret. Vanja Milinkovic-Savic started in between the sticks behind a 3-4-3 formation. Alessandro Buongiorno, Sam Beukema, and Amir Rrahmani were the back three. Giovanni Di Lorenzo and Mathías Olivera were the wing-backs, sandwiching Scott McTominay and Elif Elmas. David Neres and Noa Lang flanked Højlund up front.
The warning signs flashed immediately when Juve made several bad giveaways in the first five minutes of the match. In the sixth, McTominay had a free header at the back post after Koopmeiners mistimed the delivery from a short corner, but hit it just wide, missing so closely it rippled the outside of the side netting and fooling more than a few in the stadium into thinking he’d scored.
The hosts made sure their crowd wasn’t disappointed for long. Neres absolutely blasted past Koopmeiners and sent in a low cross to the near post. Højlund beat the marking of Kelly with a late surge of pace and stuck out a foot to direct it under Di Gregorio’s arm and into the big side of the net.
The Bianconeri couldn’t summon any sort of response. The attempt to pull the Napoli defense apart by depriving them or a reference point failed utterly, and Napoli were able to use an enthusiastic press to keep Juve from playing the ball on the deck. That forced them to try to go long, but Yildiz and especially Conceição weren’t in any position to win aerial balls against three of the tallest defenders in the league.
A frustrated Yildiz eventually blasted a ball into orbit on the turn, and Conceição did likewise just after the half-hour mark, while another short corner at the other end saw a looping header by Di Lorenzo just tipped over the bar by Di Gregorio. Juve tried their own set play on a rare free kick attempt, but Yildiz’s beautiful scooped pass into the box was again blasted over by Kelly — who was spared the embarrassment of the miss by the assistant’s flag. McTominay had another chance from a corner in stoppage time, this time crashing a header off the base of the near post just before the teams were sent in for the break.
Things needed to change immediately, and Spalletti acknowledged that by sending Jonathan David out in place of Cabal, which bumped McKennie to the right wing and Cambiaso over to the left.
His presence was nearly rendered irrelevant just four minutes into the second period, when Højlund took a simple pass from McTominay and turned on the jets, running through almost the entire Juve half on his own before straightening out his run to free himself of Kelly and fire on goal, where Di Gregorio made another fantastic save, somehow reaching a hand up and diverting it over the bar.
McTominay tried to surprise Di Gregorio with a low direct free kick but missed wide, and four minutes later, just before the hour mark, Juve pulled an excellent sequence out to tie the score.
It started with a crunching sliding challenge from Locatelli, who took the ball off of Højlund to trigger the run. Cambiaso and Yildiz exchanged passes, and the Italian nearly wasted the run with an inaccurate return ball. Conceição ran in to save it and supply the ball to Yildiz, who flipped it over the defense for McKennie. The young Turk continued his run, and McKennie found him with a pass into the right channel, from whence he rolled the ball through the one lane that would’ve let it run unencumbered into the net, settling in just behind the post.
It was here where Spalletti missed his chance. The momentum was there for the taking, but Spalletti didn’t make any moves to consolidate it, despite some players who could’ve taken the game to Napoli being ready to go. It wasn’t until there were 15 minutes left that he made a serious push to change things, and by that time Napoli had regained control of the game and were pushing to get back in front again.
And get back in front they did. It was Neres again who was the thorn in Juve’s side, sending in a cross toward the back post. It looked like it would come to nothing. McKennie easily outjumped Lang to win the header—but the American somehow contrived to head the ball right back across goal, supplying Højlund with a perfect assist. The Dane had gotten some separation from Kelly and gladly accepted the gift, slamming a header toward the net from five yards out. Di Gregorio somehow got his hand to the point-blank shot, but could only redirect it into the roof of the net, giving Napoli the lead back.
Juve didn’t look like they had the energy to muster up another response. Edon Zhegrova made another late sub appearance in the 82nd minute and once again tantalized with his ability to create. In the last minute of stoppage time his old chemistry with David from Lille was on display, as they exchanged passes to get Zhegrova into a decent shooting position, but his effort was right at Milinkovic-Savic, and the final whistle screamed into the air moments later, giving Juve their first loss since late October and keeping them from gaining any ground on their opponents for the top four.
