NAPLES (ITALPRESS) – Conte’s Napoli broke their fast of league victories, overcoming Fiorentina 2-1 at the Maradona. Goals by Lukaku and Raspadori allow the partenopei to respond to Inter’s success last night against Monza, bringing them back within one point of the nerazzurri. Nice, but “useless” goal by Gudmundsson for the guests.
The fierce and determined attitude of the hosts is thus rewarded, unlike a Fiorentina unloaded throughout the first half and inaccurate in the last meters in the second half. For a good half-hour, the game was played practically in one half-field, with Napoli attacking with great intensity, forcing Fiorentina to defend to the bitter end.
Barely ten minutes into the match, the Parthenopeans have a chance to take the lead, but Raspadori clumsily wastes it in one-on-one with De Gea, hitting the purple extreme defender. The 1-0 lead is, however, in the air and comes on time in 26′, thanks to Lukaku’s 10th league goal. The Belgian took advantage of a short rebound by De Gea on a shot by McTominay and deposited the ball into the net with the goal unguarded. The Spanish goalkeeper redeemed his mistake shortly afterward by performing a miracle on Spinazzola’s subsequent conclusion.
Fiorentina, on the other hand, made itself dangerous only sporadically, especially with Kean, who on 33′ came close to equalizing with a header from the development of a corner kick. A minute later, it was Napoli that came close to doubling the score with Di Lorenzo, who hit the crossbar.
In the second half Fiorentina raises its center of gravity, but the partenopei manage the viola’s giropalla without too much trouble. At 60′ then the Azzurri found the second goal of the day at the end of a beautiful choral action. The 2-0 goal bore the signature of Raspadori, cynical in front of De Gea after evading the marking of newcomer Pongracic. The game seems to be over, but the guests have the merit of taking advantage of the first drop of tension of Conte’s team, managing to shorten the distance.
At 66′ the home defense misreads a Pongracic verticalization: Kean then receives and serves Gudmundsson who, from the edge, plays a surgical right-footed shot into the low corner that makes it 2-1. The end of the match is rather broken up and Napoli defends the precious result tooth and nail. In the midst of the recovery Simeone gobbled up the third goal only in front of De Gea.
Napoli thus secures the three points, remaining hooked on the Scudetto train (60 points). Ninth defeat in the league, on the other hand, for Fiorentina, which slips to seventh place, by virtue of Bologna’s success in today’s lunch match on the field of Verona.
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(ITALPRESS).
