Well, I’ll be damned. Napoli didn’t lose and it’s all because of these fans, baby:
And I didn’t even bring my scarf in. I mean, I was going to, but then this morning before I left, I thought it would’ve been a dead give away why I went mysteriously missing for an hour from 3-4 p.m. over here in New York City.
Nobody takes lunch at that time and let’s be real, I didn’t have any meetings to go to.
That game was great. For me at least. It was a classic Barcelona game where it dominated possession 67 percent to Napoli’s 33 percent and still wasn’t able to get the job done.
I don’t understand this Napoli team though, man, I really don’t. Some games they look like the San Marino national team (no disrespect or anything, it’s pretty dope that playing for the national team in Euro qualifiers is their side hustle), and other games they beat Liverpool or go back to back beating Lazio and Juve.
A wise man once said they are:
Who would think a team that loses against LECCE scores a goal like this against Barca:
Everything about this Napoli goal is gold
Napoli leads 1-0: https://t.co/4QIKpQF3Gr pic.twitter.com/xAWDCHQz5T— Bleacher Report Live (@brlive) February 25, 2020
That is straight fire. Don't get me wrong, it’s cool and all, but it’s frustrating as hell watching this. I mean look at that goal. That’s an RB finesse shot for daysss. I know damn well they’re capable of playing with any team any night despite what my hater friends say, but whatever.
We beat Lazio and Juventus in back-to-back games and then two weeks later is that crap against Lecce.
This game was promising despite the 1-1 draw. Yeah Barça was in Napoli’s half practically the whole first half but Napoli shut down everyone. As soon as the ball got to Lionel Messi, Antoine Griezmann, etc., there was nowhere to run. And Napoli was without Kalidou Koulibaly.
Even Mario Rui and David Ospina didn’t try to pretend they were Roberto Carlos and Alisson. The ball came to them and they launched it. I’m all for kick and run if it prevents a Mario Rui own goal.
But then the inevitable came and Barça put away an easy goal because Giovanni Di Lorenzo left Griezmann onside:
Gotta love a good Barca build up
Napoli vs. Barcelona is level at 1-1: https://t.co/4QIKpQF3Gr pic.twitter.com/9gOLSJC2cp— Bleacher Report Live (@brlive) February 25, 2020
Whatever, I can’t say I wasn’t expecting it so I’m not even mad. Especially since it was right after Dries Mertens got hurt and came off. I think at that point Mertens was off for barely three minutes and Arkadiusz Milik came in. Thanks bro.
If there were any positives selfishly for me, there was the red card for Arturo Vidal, which honestly I’m not even sure what happened here. At that point, I had to watch the second half on my phone and it was blurry so I don’t know, was it the slide tackle? The headbutt kinda lookin' thing he did? Or were both technically yellows and the ref was like “BAM one plus one is red!”
Who knows.
And then there were these sick stats I found on Fabian Ruiz:
Fabián Ruiz’s game by numbers vs. Barcelona:
100% long passes completed
100% final third passes
94% pass accuracy
4 ball recoveries
4 interceptionsTidy performance. pic.twitter.com/KovHMzj3Km
— Statman Dave (@StatmanDave) February 25, 2020
Juicy AF. No wonder Barcelona wants him.
For the casual fan that was most definitely not the ideal match to watch, but I’ll take it. I enjoyed every 27 minutes of that lead like there was no tomorrow.
Now I have some thinking to do on my part. I told my buddy to bet on Chelsea and Barcelona to win. He has fired and hired me more times than I can count to pick games for him. It's actually unreal how many I get wrong. Maybe I'll try my luck here each week and see if my fortune changes.
