There was celebration at the Allianz Stadium on Sunday night, as Juventus completely dismantled Napoli in a 3-0 victory that pulled them to within one point of their opponent for fourth place.
It was perhaps their best performance of the season. They completely throttled the defending champions (barf), dominating the midfield and keeping Antonio Conte’s men from posing much of any threat to Juve’s goal. An excellent goal by Jonathan David in the first half, combined with late clinchers from Kenan
Yildiz and Filip Kostic, made up the scoreline.
How did everyone fare in this statement win? Let’s look and find out.
MICHELE DI GREGORIO – 6. Made his only save early in the first half, and from then on wasn’t tested at all. Orchestrated the defense well during the early parts of the second half when Juve was absorbing some pressure.
PIERRE KALULU – 6.5. Completely swallowed Eljif Elmas on his side of the field. Tallied three tackles, two interceptions, and two clearances, along with a key pass and a team-high two dribbles on the other end. As solid as ever.
BREMER – 6. Mostly held Rasmus Hojlund in check, but pushed his luck to the absolute brink at the end of the first half when he put an arm around the Dane’s head in the box. Luckily, nothing came of it. Had a rough day passing, completing only 71.4 percent.
LLOYD KELLY – 6.5. Made three tackles and three clearances, while negating most all of Napoli’s attempts to attack down his flank. Helped make Giovane’s debut quite flat indeed.
WESTON McKENNIE – 6.5. Played in several different positions over the course of the game, starting as a right wing-back before moving into the trequartista spot of a 4-2-3-1 and ending the match playing as the No. 9. Had two key passes and led the team with five clearances, while helping keep the midfield firmly in Juve’s control.
MANUEL LOCATELLI – 7. Dominated the midfield battle with Scott McTominay. Constantly marked the Scot out of proceedings, while still finding the time to complete 92.8 percent of his passes and make a truly outrageous pass for the assist on David’s opening goal. Finished with three tackles and a pair of blocked shots defensively.
KHÉPHREN THURAM – 8. The standout of the match on all levels. He made a mind-bending eight tackles, and was desperately unlucky not to score the opener with a fantastic shot that thunked off the corner of the woodwork. Also noteworthy was his lung-busting run through the middle of the Napoli defense at the end of the first half, resulting in a corner kick after his shot was blocked. He’s been regaining form the last few weeks, and this may have been the best match he’s ever played in Juve colors.
ANDREA CAMBIASO – 5.5. Perhaps the only real downer of the evening, Cambiaso is still struggling for form. His movement was good—in some cases excellent—but he simply isn’t making the ball do what he wants it to. His touch was awful, and he wasted a couple of great positions.
FRANCISCO CONCEIÇÃO – 6. He was unlucky to have a goal robbed by Alessandro Buongiorno, but it also has to be said that his first touch was slightly off and forced him into shooting there as opposed to the uncovered near post. Had one key pass and three tackles, helping keep the Bianconeri in Napoli’s end during the first half.
KENAN YILDIZ – 7. Had a pair of key passes and his finish on the goal was typically excellent. Made a great impact even though he was getting draped by a pair of defenders most of the time.
JONATHAN DAVID – 7. Scored a great goal in the first half, and it’s really clear that he’s regained his confidence. He ran everywhere, leading the game in distance run by the time he was taken off. Here’s the guy we were promised when he signed.
SUBS
FILIP KOSTIC – 6.5. Looked slightly wonky on the right side, but his goal was a banger.
JUAN CABAL – 6. Solid defensively in Cambiaso’s place for the final half-hour.
FABIO MIRETTI – NR. An assist with his first touch, and he was a constant nuisance up front.
TEUN KOOPMEINERS – NR. On to spell Locatelli for the last few minutes.
FEDERICO GATTI – NR. Nice to see Freddy Cats back on the field, if even for a few minutes.
MANAGER ANALYSIS
Seven weeks ago Spalletti completely bottled things against Napoli. On Sunday, he got everything right. The way he set the team up was pitch-perfect. He was able to completely wipe out McTominay, who had been a major problem in the return, and completely neutralized the Napoli attack.
What was a little bit more concerning, at least at first, was how the team came out in the second half. It looked for all the world like Spalletti had made the out-of-character decision to sit on the 1-0 lead and ride out the rest of the match on defense. It was enough to give flashbacks to other coaches whose first impulse was to do that. I, for one, was getting nervous as 20 minutes or so went by with Napoli controling 70 percent or more of the possession in the half. Napoli had barely put a shot towards goal—much less one on target—during that time, but we’ve seen Juve waste games like this with a single mistake even when they were dominating the match.
But close to the 70 minute mark or so, Juve started to come out of their shell. They looked to attack more, and when Yildiz scored the second goal it let the air out of Napoli like a balloon, and Juve kept complete control of the game from then on out. Looking back, it feels like Spalletti was lying in wait for those first 25 minutes or so of the half, waiting for the Napoli players—who had hardly anything on the bench to back them up thanks to their mountainous injury list—to show some signs of fatigue before springing the team forward and running them ragged in the last phases of the match. It feels like Conte was sensing the same thing on the Napoli sideline, because he threw on two of his meager subs to try to counteract that within five minutes of each other. It isn’t a surprise that Juve regained their control of the match as time ticked on after that.
If that’s where Spalletti’s mind was going, it was a superb reading of the situation. One way or the other, he cooked up a fantastic plan to smother Napoli and right the wrongs from the December game in Naples.
LOOKING AHEAD
Juve now turn their attention to the Champions League league phase finale on Wednesday at Monaco. Depending on the results around them, a victory could secure a high place in the seed pot for the playoff round, or, if everything goes right, a place in the top eight to bypass the playoff round altogether.
After that, Juve take a trip to Parma in Serie A, then another to Bergamo to face Atalanta in the Coppa Italia quarterfinal. A home game against Lazio rounds out the next two weeks.
