Gao Shen has always believed that Naples must still have a chance to reverse the situation.
Inter Milan can't keep winning like this, he will definitely stop.
The premise is that Naples must perform better than its opponents.
Especially during the tough lows.
…
Three days after the victory over Juventus, Naples ushered in the twentieth round of Serie A and challenged Cagliari away.
Continuous double matches a week, continuous rotations and adjustments, coupled with the fact that Naples' overall state is still at a low point, so the team's performance is still not satisfactory.
But the more it comes at this time, the more it will test the thickness of the team's bench.
In the first two rounds, Thiago Motta played very well in the midfield, but this time it was Parejo.
In the tenth minute of the first half, the young Spanish midfielder received a cross from Rakitic in the midfield and ran sideways with the ball, confusing the defender and making the opponent think he was going to pass the ball in the opposite direction.
, in fact, he suddenly sent a precise through ball with his right foot.
This through ball was like a sharp scalpel, cutting through Cagliari's defense and accurately landing on the right side of the penalty area. Sanchez quickly inserted it, stopped, and then hit again, opening the scoring for Naples.
zero!
This was also the only goal in the game.
In the subsequent games, Parejo also created a lot of opportunities, but either his teammates did not realize it, or their teammates' shots were not very accurate, so they never scored again.
But Parejo sat in the midfield, which made Cagliari very afraid.
In the end, Naples won 1-0 away with Parejo assisting Sanchez's goal.
…
The day after Naples narrowly defeated Cagliari away from home, Inter Milan also faced Udinese away from home.
Udinese is a team with a positive style, excellent running ability, bravery and toughness, and very strict technical and tactical disciplines. This time they insisted on adopting their best style of play at their home court.
That is to organize a tight defense and quickly counterattack.
This style of play gave Inter Milan a headache, and they couldn't even come up with an effective solution.
After a stalemate for ninety minutes, Inter Milan drew with Udinese 0-0 away from home.
In other games, Juventus defeated Livorno 3-1 away from home.
AC Milan relied on Pato's brace to beat Genoa 2-0 at home.
Roma, on the other hand, relied on Mancini's goal to beat Palermo 1-0 at home.
After this round of fighting, everyone was pleasantly surprised to find that Inter Milan finally slowed down a little.
Yes, just slowing down because they are still undefeated.
Serie A has played twenty rounds and Inter Milan remains unbeaten.
Looking at European football, who has this kind of dominance?
However, although Inter Milan tied and their lead narrowed, the ranking still did not change much.
Naples is still ranked third, Roma is second with one point, and Inter Milan is seven points ahead of Naples.
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Three days later, the second leg of the Italian Cup quarter-finals knockout match.
After Naples defeated Juventus 5-2 away from home in the first leg, they returned to home and tied with Juventus 2-2.
Ranieri's team is determined to win on the road, even at the expense of some defense.
Naples carried out more intensive rotations to allow the main players and players who have performed well recently to get more rest time. As a result, the two sides fought evenly and settled for a draw at 2-2.
Naples relied on this draw to successfully advance to the semifinals with a total score of 7 to 4.
The other three teams that advanced to the semi-finals are Roma, Inter Milan and Fiorentina.
After the restructuring of this year's Coppa Italia, the final took place in a single game, and the final venue was the Stadio Olimpico in Rome.
Therefore, Roma is also determined to win this cup championship on their own doorstep.
After the draw, Naples met Prandelli's Fiorentina in the semi-finals, and Inter Milan met Roma.
Fiorentina is also the only team to have defeated Napoli in the league so far this season.
Everyone also believed that Naples was in trouble.
The Coppa Italia semi-finals are scheduled for April.
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Over the weekend, in the 21st round of Serie A, Napoli faced Udinese at home.
It's really interesting to say.
In the first round of the league, Udinese also drew with Inter Milan in the first round and welcomed Napoli in the second round.
Not only that, Udinese has met Inter Milan four times in the past two seasons, all of which were draws, either 0-0 or 1-1.
Head coach Pasquale Marino deployed a three-four-three offensive tactic in the away game, making it clear that the team wanted to avenge the defeat in the second round, and although Naples' state came in somewhat recovered, it had not yet adjusted.
good.
He wants to add insult to injury!
Gao Shen still played steadily and dealt with it with his best four-two-three-one.
But in the opening attack, Napoli's first shot was an own goal, which came from Zapata's mistake.
This is something no one thought of.
After taking a one-goal lead, Udinese launched a wave of attacks in an attempt to create a threat in front of Naples' goal.
But in the 29th minute, Naples launched a quick counterattack. Biglia sent a wonderful pass from the center. After Cavani stopped the ball sideways, he squeezed away the defensive player and fired an angry shot from the top of the penalty area.
He penetrated Udinese's goal and further expanded the score to 2-0!
What no one expected was that just two minutes later, there was another quick counterattack. After getting the ball from the left, Di Maria forced a breakthrough, rushed into the penalty area, and assisted Cavani to score another victory, three to zero!
The Uruguayan center scored twice.
After that, both sides slowed down.
Udinese has obviously learned the lessons from the past and is afraid that Naples will score another big score.
But no one expected that in the second half, when the sides changed sides and the battle resumed, Cannavaro Jr. swung his arm while defending and hit the opponent's forward Di Natale with his elbow. It was considered a malicious elbow and was given a direct red card.
Down.
Udinese took the opportunity to launch a fierce attack. Six minutes after the red card, Simon Pepe scored a goal for Udinese.
Sadly, Simon Pepe also received the second yellow card of the game in the 60th minute and was sent off with a red card.
Both sides are evenly matched.
The game also entered a stalemate.
In the end, Naples defeated Udinese 3-1 at home and scored three points again.
…
While Naples defeated Udinese, Inter Milan was at home and defeated Empoli 1-0 with Ibrahimovic's penalty kick.
But it was still very difficult for Inter Milan to win this game.
Empoli had a penalty kick in the 83rd minute of the second half, but unfortunately failed to make a penalty kick. San Cesar made great contributions to Inter Milan.
Juventus played against Cagliari at home. The two sides were in a stalemate for the entire game, and finally ended in a one-to-one draw.
The two goals were scored in the 55th and 56th minutes of the second half respectively.
But the real surprise was the next day's game.
When Roma challenged Siena in the relegation zone away from home, they actually suffered a 0-3 defeat in the away game.
They conceded a goal in the first 11 minutes. Before the end of the first half, Tonetto scored an own goal and conceded another goal before the end of the game.
The Red Wolves failed to withstand the pressure at the critical moment and suffered a disastrous defeat.
Losing is normal, but losing 3-0 to a team in the relegation zone will have a very heavy blow to Roma's morale.
AC Milan continued to maintain the good momentum of recent times and defeated Fiorentina 1-0 in an away game. This victory directly raised Ancelotti's team ranking to sixth place.
Obviously, after Ancelotti's adjustments during the winter break, the Rossoneri has gradually begun to get on the right track and found its rhythm.
Not only did AC Milan's ranking rise, Napoli's ranking also rose after defeating Udinese, returning to second place in Serie A, seven points behind Inter Milan.
Roma's ranking fell one place due to a 0-3 defeat to Siena, from one point ahead of Naples to two points behind Naples, ranking third in Serie A.
Juventus is still ranked fourth in Serie A, but after this round's draw with Cagliari, the point gap with Juventus has quickly expanded from the original three points to five points.
…
After this round of league play, the situation in Serie A has once again undergone earth-shaking changes.
Juventus basically announced that they were out of the championship ranks.
In fact, as early as the disastrous defeat to Naples at the Alpi Stadium, everyone basically concluded that it would be difficult for Juventus to win the league championship again, and it was even unclear whether Juventus could retain the top four in the league.
Inter Milan continues to be a one-man show, but after experiencing its peak form in the last two months of last year and entering the winter break, Mancini's team has declined significantly. Although it can still rely on its overall strength to win steadily
, maintaining an undefeated record, but after entering February, the challenges will be more difficult.
However, the seven-point lead is enough for Inter Milan to continue to be the top favorite to win the Serie A championship. It can even be said that Inter Milan is basically guaranteed to win.
Undefeated in twenty-one rounds, this team's performance is too stable!
As for Roma, after losing to Siena 0-3, how big a blow it will have on the Giallorossi depends on Spalletti's tactics. If it is not handled carefully, the Giallorossi may fall directly out of the championship corps.
ranks.
Naples is one of the teams that performed amazingly after the winter break, the other is Carlo Ancelotti's AC Milan.
The performance of both teams is on a steady upward trend, which makes everyone expect that these two teams are likely to reach their peak next, especially Naples.
Compared to other giants in Serie A, they only have Serie A and Coppa Italia.
In the next February and March, there will only be Serie A.
This is Naples' biggest advantage.
Sacchi analyzed in his column that if Gao Shen wants to reverse Inter Milan in Serie A, he must make good use of the two-month schedule to quickly shorten the gap and hold on to Inter Milan in terms of points.
Finally, in the twenty-sixth round, in the home game against Inter Milan, we grabbed the most critical three points.