April 10, (THEWILL) – Napoli’s aspirations of winning the Serie A title for the first time since the days of Diego Maradona were dashed on Sunday, when they were defeated 3-2 at home by Europe-chasing Fiorentina.
With a win in front of 50,000 fans in Naples, Napoli would have gone to the top of the table, but they are now a point behind league leaders AC Milan after goals from Nicolas Gonzalez, Jonathan Ikone, and Arthur Cabral, left Luciano Spalletti’s team nursing a heartbreaking defeat.
Gonzalez opened the scoring on the half-hour mark with a thunderous finish off the post, following which the hosts essentially withered from action until Dries Mertens was introduced 10 minutes after the break.
Mertens’ first act was to almost take the roof off the stadium with a brilliant first-time strike from a Victor Osimhen cut back, but the roars of the fanatical crowd were quickly drowned out by two quick Fiorentina goals.
Ikone gathered Gonzalez’s cross and rifled his team back into the lead just eight minutes after Mertens’ equaliser, and jeers began to ring around the field in the 72nd minute when Cabral wonderfully curled in the third.
Osimhen, who had been battling Igor Julio all day, slammed home his 12th league goal of the season, but it would come as little comfort to the Nigerian and his teammates.
As Milan travels to Torino in Sunday’s late match, there is a likelihood that Napoli might end the weekend four points behind the leaders with six games remaining in a tight Serie A season.
The manner in which southern Italy’s greatest club collapsed on a beautiful day at the Stadio Diego Maradona does not speak well for the final weeks of the season, especially with fierce rivals Roma travelling to town next weekend with Jose Mourinho’s charges in search of a Champions League spot themselves.
Napoli are in third place, level on 66 points with Inter Milan, who renewed their own title challenge with a 2-0 win against Verona on Saturday.
Jude Obafemi is a versatile senior Correspondent at THEWILL Newspapers, excelling in sourcing, researching, and delivering sports news stories for both print and digital publications.
