Football
The master’s hangover has no end. Napoli suffered a debacle at home, even the third coach didn’t pick it up. A year without a trophy is looming, fans are furious
Last season was one big ride, this season is more mediocrity and misery. Napoli are experiencing a championship hangover with all the trimmings, but fortunately they don’t have to worry about their future in the top flight. Still, the fans are not happy. Especially after Saturday’s debacle.
Last season was one big ride, this season is more mediocrity and misery. Napoli are experiencing a championship hangover with all the trimmings, but fortunately they don’t have to worry about their future in the top flight. Still, the fans are not happy. Especially after Saturday’s debacle.
While last year there was an explosion of joy under Vesuvius, this season it is rather the opposite and the boisterous fans are starting to lose patience. The reason is simple. After winning the title, not even being in the top six and thus not playing European cups? An unpleasant situation.
It was obvious that Luciano Spalletti’s departure as head coach would be a major inconvenience for Napoli, but the fact is that the club’s management has been making a heap of mistakes since then. The first one was the incomprehensible engagement of Rudi Garcia as coach.
Garcia not only didn’t have the results to match the fact that Napoli won the title the season before he arrived, but on top of that there were all sorts of problems in the cabin. Even the performance was not worth much. Compared to what the Partenopei showed under Spalletti, it was a fall from heaven to hell.
It was no surprise that the Frenchman was sacked after sixteen uncoached (8 wins, 4 draws, 4 losses) games across all competitions. But even after his departure, things didn’t change for the better.
Rather for nostalgic reasons, the team was taken over by Walter Mazzarri, who once led the club to victory in the Italian Cup and made the situation even worse. He managed seventeen games in office (6 wins, 3 draws, 8 losses).
In the second half of February, Naples brought Francesco Canzone to replace Mazzarri and, as it seems, it is still not an ideal solution.
Napoli has been dealt a debacle, the fans are furious
It’s worth mentioning that before Napoli engaged Rudi Garcia, there were several interesting coaches in the game who could have headed under Vesuvius. The fans didn’t trust him from the start, but decided to at least give him a chance. However, they were somewhat happy about the arrival of Mazzarri, who came more out of necessity and was one of the few who was willing to accept a contract until the end of the season, but they knew it was just a stopgap solution.
The reactions to the arrival of the third coach were already rather lukewarm, bland. They just hoped it wouldn’t get any worse. And how’s that? Not better. In the ten games under him, the Partenopei have won only twice, drawn five times and lost three times.
The last defeat was the worst. On Saturday, after the return of club football, the dangerous Atalanta, the main rival of Canzone’s charges in the fight for the European Cups and the top six, played at Diego Armando Maradona’s stadium. It was expected to be an uphill battle, but the result disappointed everyone.
Although Napoli had a sell-out crowd and had a huge support at the start of the match, disappointment soon set in. Already in the first half the home side were down by two goals, and at the very end of the game came the third goal. The result? 0:3 for Naples.
Many supporters left the stadium before the end of the game. Those who stayed booed loudly and criticized their stars. The Partenopei are now five points behind the top six and therefore the European Cup next season. In addition, main rivals Atalanta, Fiorentina and Lazio Rome have matches to play.
Source: Serie A