ITALIAN SERIE A
Femi Solaja with agency report
Super Eagles forward, Victor Osimhen, was the hero of the night as Napoli bounced back from defeat at Inter Milan last week to defeat Sampdoria 2-0 away to consolidate at the top of Italian Serie A.
Osimhen fired the opener in the 19th minute after Matteo Politano had blown a spot kick in the 6th minute. A late Eljif Elmas penalty eventually broke Sampdoria, who had Tomas Rincon sent off.
There were emotional scenes before kick-off, as the gates of Marassi had already become a makeshift shrine to Gianluca Vialli.
During the minute’s silence, Dejan Stankovic stood holding Sinisa Mihajlovic’s shirt between the ex-Bologna coach’s three sons, while President Marco Lanna held up Vialli’s jersey.
The pressure was on the Partenopei after their first Serie A defeat of the season and Luciano Spalletti made several changes in defence and midfield, while Sampdoria were fresh from a surprise win away to Sassuolo.
Fabio Quagliarella, Omar Colley, Andrea Conti, Abdelhamid Sabiri, Ignacio Pussetto and Manuel De Luca missed out along with suspended Bruno Amione, but Filip Djuricic returned from his ban. Bartosz Bereszynski was on the Napoli bench just hours after completing his transfer from the Blucerchiati.
There was huge controversy in the opening minutes, because Andre-Frank Zambo Anguissa slipped in the box and Nicola Murru accidentally trod on his ankle after the fall.
However, VAR only showed the referee the final footage of the stamp and he opted for an extraordinarily harsh penalty. Emil Audero came to the rescue, fingertipping Matteo Politano’s spot-kick onto the upright.
Alex Meret was also called into action with an acrobatic save on Valerio Verre’s ground to air missile, then on the resulting corner Bram Nuytinck’s header glanced just wide.
Audero did the same on a looping Osimhen header, but was eventually beaten when the Nigerian stuck out a leg to prod in Mario Rui’s low cross from the left.
Kvicha Kvaratskhelia hesitated when clear on goal to be denied by Audero, then Anguissa’s chest and half-volley flashed inches wide.
The game turned when Osimhen shrugged off Bram Nuytinck and was hacked down by Tomas Rincon, the referee opting for a straight red card. It wasn’t entirely sure if the red was for stopping a clear scoring opportunity – as he was wide and running towards goal – or for it being incredibly cynical with no attempt to get the ball, but probably a combination of the two.
Kvaratskhelia flashed an angled drive across the face of goal after Politano’s counter-attack.
Sampdoria moved to a 4-4-1 formation for the second half, while Kim Min-jae went off as a precaution with a knock.
Audero fumbled a Politano cross-shot, but managed to get it under control before Osimhen could pounce, while Stanislav Lobotka drilled just wide from distance.
Tanguy Ndombele and Piotr Zielinski fired over, but Napoli received another penalty when Eljif Elmas prodded a loose ball onto Ronaldo Vieira’s trailing arm and VAR sent the referee to the monitor. This time Elmas decided to take the spot-kick and blasted an unstoppable effort into the roof of the net for the second goal for Napoli.
