It’s been a dream start to the campaign for Napoli after a disappointing seventh-place finish last season (apart from the ludicrous fallout of the abandoned Juventus match), and a key to the club’s revival has been the renaissance of Hirving “Chucky” Lozano.
El Tráfico took center stage on Sunday afternoon as Los Angeles FC hosted the LA Galaxy at an empty Banc of California Stadium but with thousands watching the action unfold on national television.
The standings — LAFC entered fifth in the Western Conference, the Galaxy dead last — and ESPN.com’s promo photo juxtaposing Bradley Wright-Phillips and Sebastian Lletget told you everything you needed to know about how much has changed for these two clubs over the past year.
The pattern of Wolverhampton’s play is absurdly predictable. Since returning to the Premier League in 2018-19, Wolves have failed to score in the first half 58 times. That’s the most in the division.
However, they love a 0-0 scoreline after 45. They did that 14 times last season and only lost one of them. No club scored a higher percentage of its goals in the second half than Wolves, and no club boasted a stronger goal difference in the final 30 minutes of games than Nuno Espírito Santo’s men.
A Raúl Jiménez shot that took a heavy deflection off the head of Leeds United midfielder Kalvin Phillips gave Wolverhampton a hard-fought 1-0 away win in the Premier League on Monday.
A strange weekend in LaLiga that included defeats for both Real Madrid (1-0 to Cádiz) and Barcelona (1-0 to Getafe) ended with Real Sociedad at the top of the table following a 3-0 win over Real Betis at the Benito Villamarín on Sunday.
Napoli hosting Atalanta was always going to produce plenty of goals, with two of Italy’s most electric offenses meeting at the San Paolo Stadium on Saturday. We just didn’t think they’d all be from one club in the first half, including two Chucky Lozano goals vs Atalanta.
A couple months ago, Chucky Lozano was kicked out of training, with the Mexico international looking like he was on the outs at Napoli. Two games into the 2020-21 Serie A campaign, however, he looks to be an integral piece in Gennaro Gattuso’s side.
After defeating Manchester City in both their meetings last season, many predicted another trial by fire for Pep Guardiola’s side against Wolves at the Molineux on Monday night, especially so with Nathan Aké and John Stones anchoring City’s backline.
But the opening 45 minutes was a master class in command from the Sky Blues (although looking very much like the Lilywhites) with Rodri and Fernandinho protecting the backline and Kevin De Bruyne, Phil Foden and Raheem Sterling playing in perfect harmony.
Napoli pounced on two defensive mistakes to win 2-0 at Parma in their opening match of the season on Sunday as spectators returned to Serie A for the first time since March.
Dries Mertens and Lorenzo Insigne got Napoli's campaign off to a winning start with second-half goals shortly after club record signing Victor Osimhen was brought on for his debut.