Milan played host to Napoli in what was an incredibly one sided affair from start to finish.
Much was made over a match that featured arguably the two most potent and lethal strikers in the Serie A, Gonzalo Higuain and Carlos Bacca. The match between Milan and Napoli ended unexpectedly to some and as expected to others. Judging by several Milanista’s in the world of calcio, they had tons of faith in their team this weekend against an on-fire Napoli squad coming off of a victory against struggling Juventus. After 5 straight games without a loss to the Partenopei’s record, Napoli come into Milan only allowing one goal and scoring 14, Napoli looked by far the more in-form side coming into the match.
The first 10 minutes of the match was rather rugged, with no team able to really maintain possession of the ball for long periods of time and several tackles and break-up play coming into effect. Then, in the 13th minute, Insigne pounced on a misplaced pass by Cristian Zapata and sent an on-rushing Allan through to goal. The rest of the half really only featured a couple of chances for Napoli including an incredible imaginative play by Higuain resulting in only a shot straight to Milan ‘keeper Diego Lopez. Then the second half came…
Straight from the first whistle in the second half, we saw which team was the hungrier of the two. In the 48th minute, Insigne and Higuain linked up for a great goal to drown Milan deeper into their sorrows and send Milan coach Sinisa Mihajlovic into a panic. After 20 minutes of soaking up attack after attack from Milan, Napoli finally found another breakthrough. Insigne found himself on a perfectly placed freekick, as many could have predicted, the imaginative forward troubled Diego Lopez enough that not even getting a hand on the ball could have stopped it from going in. Finally, to cap off Milan’s miserable night, Napoli left- back Faouzi Ghoulam sent a low cross into the box which Milan defender Rodrigo Ely accidentally put into his own net. The game then ended 4-0, capping off a completely dominating performance from the Azzurri.
Lorenzo Insigne made such an impact on the game that legendary coach Arrigo Sacchi said, “Insigne is the most brilliant Italian player of the past few generations” (via TuttoMercatoWeb). This says a lot for two reasons: one being that Arrigo Sacchi is arguably the BEST coach of all time! His record with Milan can tell the tale of his incredibly illustrious career. His words, no matter what, pull a lot of weight. The second reason for why Sacchi’s comment means a lot is because there still exists a certain Marco Verratti. Marco and Lorenzo undeniably have enormous amounts of talent, and for the past few seasons Verratti’s play has gone a bit different than Insigne’s. Let’s just leave arguing whom of which is better alone and just enjoy watching these two brilliant Italian talents play and hopefully serve the national Azzurri well in the future.
Speaking of La Nazionale, has Insigne done enough to merit a starting spot on the Azzurri for their up-and-coming Euro Qualifying fixtures? I say yes, the little magician has shown he can affect a match at anytime, especially the big ones. He’s scored against Milan, Lazio and Juventus all in the span of two weeks, that must merit a starting spot given that Italy’s attack has been lackluster for most of the Euro Qualifying period, especially since Italy manager Antonio Conte was in the stands watching today.
All in all, Lorenzo Insigne, Gonzalo Higuain and everyone involved at SSC Napoli are on fire at the moment. As Napoli fans, we can only hope that they can keep up the momentum barring an international break coming up this week.
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