There are teams who, when unexpectedly leading their league after a few weeks of play, will eventually crumble under the hype and the rarified atmosphere. After all, oxygen tends to get scarce in the upper floors of Serie A, especially for those who haven’t been living there since the early 90′s.

Napoli isn’t one of those teams.

Nearly two months after the season start, the Edy Reja magic is still working. In fact, the biggest indication of greatness (well, one of the biggest) is achieving victory (and doing so consistently) even when you don’t deserve it. Such was the case in the match against Lazio today, where Azzurri and Biancocelesti competed in a very enjoyable an evenly-matched battle, but where the home team had to concede the win due an unfortunate own goal of their nº1 defender, Sebastiano Siviglia. At the heart of said play for the Napoletani? Who else but Ezequiel “El Pocho” Lavezzi.

Sunday’s match between Biancocelesti and Azzurri was a tale of two halves really. As much as Lazio came in guns blazing in the first period, accelerating forward (thanks to Serie A topscorer Mauro Zarate) and trying their luck from long-range (through Cristian Daniel Ledesma notably), Napoli really hit back in the second half, growing exponentially as the match progressed and as the rest of the team caught up with the unstoppable runs of Ezequiel Lavezzi.

Indeed, it was precisely thanks to a left-wing incursion from El Pocho that the Azzurri obtained their only goal of the match, a rather fortunate (or unfortunate, for Lazio) deflection by Siviglia on the powerful backpass cross of the Argentine striker. Hitting the top of the Lazio center-back’s thigh, the ball looped into the air and rainbowed over a very helpless Juan Pablo Carrizo. Until then, the only big scares for the home team had been a Walter Gargano free-kick skimming the crossbar, and a narrowly wide shot by Lavezzi. 1-0 Napoli.

After conceding the goal, one would have expected a fierce Biancocelesti reaction, especially based on their first-half performance. Instead, it was rather bland. Zarate pretty much disappeared from the match, followed soon by the rest of his teammates. Not even the late entrance of Simone Inzaghi (match-saviour two weeks ago against Lecce) made a very big difference, and the only big chance obtained by the home team was a Goran Pandev shot deflected onto the crossbar by Navarro (on for the injured Iezzo).

Down the other end, Siviglia made amends for his own goal by blocking an almost certain finish of Lavezzi into the bottom-left corner, but that only contributed at making tonight’s scoreline not too severe for his team. Those walking away with the three points (and the top-of-the-Serie-A lead) were Napoli.

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	LAZIO-NAPOLI 0-1 [Match Highlights]
GOALSCORERS: :61’ Siviglia o.g. (N).
LAZIO (4-3-1-2): Carrizo – Lichtsteiner (87’ De Silvestri), Siviglia, Rozehnal, Radu – Brocchi (80’ S.Inzaghi), Ledesma, Manfredini (62’ Foggia) – Mauri – Pandev, Zarate. (bench: Muslera, Diakite, Kolarov, Dabo). Coach: D.Rossi.
NAPOLI: (3-5-2): Iezzo (66’ Navarro) – Santacroce, Rinaudo, Aronica – Maggio, Blasi, Gargano, Hamsik, Mannini (65’ Contini) – Denis (80’ Zalayeta), Lavezzi. (bench: Grava, Montervino, Pazienza, Pià). Coach: Reja.

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Tags: Delio Rossi, Edy Reja, Ezequiel Lavezzi, Lazio, Napoli, Sebastiano Siviglia, Serie A

Posted in Lazio, Napoli, Serie A |

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