Long heckled by Empoli, Naples provided the essentials at home to win by the smallest of margins and retain the lead in Serie A.
Naples suffered to win on the Empoli field (1-0), but is assured of remaining at the top of the Italian Championship standings after the 8th day, while Fiorentina humiliated Lecce in front of their public 6 to 0, Sunday.
If Antonio Conte has been urging Napoli supporters for several weeks not to think about «scudetto»his team’s laborious victory against Empoli should not dampen their confidence. Naples was pushed around and could have been down 2-0 after the first period, but Giovanni Di Lorenzo and his teammates reacted and emerged as… champions.
The entry on the hour mark of Giovanni Simeone for Romelu Lukaku, transparent, woke up Naples who scored the only goal of the match on a penalty converted by their Georgian striker Khvicha Kvaratskhelia (63rd).
Our first period didn’t please me at all, in many ways.
Antonio Conte
“I warned my team that this match would be complicated against, in my opinion, one of the best teams in our championship, and our first period did not please me at all, in many respects”regretted Conte on the DAZN platform. Asked about his team’s chances of playing the leading roles this season after a disastrous 2023-34 financial year (10th with three different coaches), the former coach of the Italy team, who arrived in July, kicked in. “We’re trying to build something for the long term”he insisted.
Thanks to this sixth victory in eight matches, Naples, leader with 19 points, is three steps ahead of its first pursuer, Juventus Turin (2nd, 16 pts) who painfully got the better of Lazio Rome (1- 0), Saturday.
Inter Milan, reigning champion (3rd, 14 pts), can come back to two points and take second place provided they win on the field of the unpredictable AS Rome (10th, 10 pts) on Sunday in the evening. Empoli, which was in 5th position after the 5th day, fell into line with this second consecutive defeat. The Tuscan club, which had difficulty maintaining its position last season, is 11th with ten points.
The Retegui roller coaster
Fiorentina jumped to 5th place (13 pts) after their third victory in four matches thanks to doubles from Danilo Cataldi and Andrea Colpani. Atalanta seems to have found its cruising speed and finds itself 6th (13 pts) after its success on the ground of the red lantern Venice (2-0) thanks in particular to the eighth goal this season from Mateo Retegui, top scorer in Serie A , ahead of Marcus Thuram (7).
