On 11 December 2013, Napoli defeated Arsenal 2-0 in the last match of this year’s Champions League group stages—taking revenge on the Gunners for their defeat by the same score-line two months prior. As a result, the Partenopei earned 12 points, which, in theory, should have been more than enough to get through to the round of 16; after all, Russian outfit Zenit qualified with a measly six. But, unfortunately for last year’s Serie A runners’ up, they were placed in the aptly titled “Group of Death”, which indeed lived up to his name and saw Rafa Benitez’s men dumped out of the competition—the first time in history that a side had reached a dozen and failed to progress to the first knock-out rounds.
This was the second time the Southern Italian club had graced Europe’s premier football competition—their debut was back in 2011-2012 where they were again paired in a tough group with the likes of Bayern Munich and Manchester City. Still, they managed an impressive second placed-finish, only to be knocked out by eventual winners Chelsea in the beginning knockout phase. Due to falling to fifth place in Serie A that season, they missed out on Champions League football for last season and many had expected them to struggle without the services of goal-scoring machine Edinson Cavani.
However, in their sophomore appearance on the continental footballing stage, they showed that they more than have the personnel to fill the void left by the Uruguayan’s departure to PSG this past summer, notably with former Real Madrid duo Jose Callejon and Gonzalo Higuain putting on a good show—especially in their crunch clash with Arsenal at the Stadio San Paolo.
This season though currently sees them in third place, well behind a rampaging Juventus that save for a surprise 4-2 reversal to Fiorentina on 20 October have easily dispatched them as well as fellow Scudetto contenders Roma by a goal differential of +6, all whilst not conceding anything at the back. In fact, the reigning title holders have only had one goal scored against them, with Maximiliano Moralez’s strike for Atalanta on 22 December doing little to prevent the Bianconeri from steamrolling past them in the last game before the Christmas holiday.
Yet, while Rafa Benitez’s men are pretty much out of the Scudetto challenge—as their 39 points now see them 10 behind the Turin giants, with previous league leaders Roma also having fallen off the pace, they are still within touching distance of the Giallorossi’s 41 and uncomfortably close to Fiorentina’s 36. The Viola will be certainly keen to feature in next year’s Champions League after missing out last year to Milan, who experienced a rapid renaissance over the second half of the season to squeak into that vital third place spot in dramatic fashion.
Hence, given this, the pressure is on for this high-flying side to ensure that they cannot afford to slip up at any point during this season should they want to grace the continent’s top competition. At one point they were the highest scoring side in Italian football’s top flight but have no seen that surpassed by a highly efficient Juventus side that has not only outscored the 19 other sides with 42 goals but more impressively is only second to Roma’s 10 with 11 goals conceded over 18 games.
Since a surprise 1-0 loss to Parma on match day 13, they haven’t suffered defeat, but have dropped four vital points after being held to draws with Udinese—whose days fighting for a top spot with the “big” sides seems to have come to an end— and Cagliari in their last matches of 2013. They did trounce Inter in a thrilling six-goal encounter in between those two draws and rebounded with a 2-0 victory over Sampdoria in their first clash of 2014. The Partenopei will obviously need to make sure they stay on top of things if they want to keep a hungry Viola side (now perhaps weakened with the injury crisis to their top marksman Giuseppe Rossi) at bay and hopefully pip Roma to that second-place spot so as to avoid a potentially tricky play-off tie that could end their hopes to return to Europe’s biggest footballing stage prematurely.
But will they be able to do so? Midfielder Dries Mertens was feeling confident after scoring a double against Sampdoria early this week, stating to the Gazzetta dello Sport that “there were still many games remaining in the league” and that his side had no intention of giving up their Scudetto ambitions, despite the massive ten points between them and Juventus at the summit. Moreover, the former PSV Eindhoven man was clear that they intended to “close the gap on Roma” which is certainly a more realistic ask than somehow catching up with a side that has no intention of letting anyone prevent them from celebrating a Scudetto three-peat in Turin come May.
Indeed, there are quite a few games remaining in the season, including matches with Juventus and Roma which they will be keen on earning at least a point from these two given that they were outclassed and outscored by a combined five goals to zilch during the first half of this season–something that they will certainly want to make amends for the second time around. Napoli certainly do have the aptitude to do as they were able to claim second place last season and have seen their fortunes improve over the past few seasons. However, having the potential to do something and actually executing it are two different things, so in the absence of a crystal ball, it will indeed be interesting to see where the highly ambitious side will find themselves in a few months.