March 19, (THEWILL) – The impressive Victor Osimhen scored a brace to help Napoli come back from a goal down to beat Udinese 2-1 at the Stadio Diego Armando Maradona on Saturday.
After a neat through pass by Roberto Pereyra, Udinese took a shock lead after 22 minutes to give their hosts an early scare in Napoli’s drive to keep their title hopes high. Gerard Deulofeu found the bottom left corner of the net with a fantastic effort from the edge of the area.
Napoli gave Udinese a good chase to level the scores and Lorenzo Insigne’s curling shot from the edge of the box just went narrowly wide of the far post. It was the Partenopei’s best chance of the first half.
At halftime, Luciano Spalletti shuffled the pack, bringing on Dries Mertens and switching to a 4-2-3-1 formation with Osimhen tasked to deliver the incisive end product the hosts desperately needed to keep pressure on league leaders AC Milan.
The changes paid off, as Spalletti’s charges were level within ten minutes of the restart, courtesy of Osimhen, who headed in at the back post following a free-kick routine. It was his 10th League goal of the season and made him the first ever Nigerian to reach double figures in two Serie A seasons.
Yet, he still had reserves in the tank because after a low cross from the byline by an overlapping Giovanni Di Lorenzo, Osimhen scored a simple tap-in from inside the area to complete the turnaround in just ten minutes.
There was not much Udinese could do after that to affect the outcome and the result puts Napoli level on points with Milan at the top of Serie A, even though temporarily as the leaders have a game in hand away to Cagliari late Saturday evening.
It is a boost for Nigeria’s efforts to reach Qatar 2022 FIFA World Cup that two of her forwards, Osimhen and Odion Ighalo are hitting a good vein of form with a couple of goals just prior to the Super Eagles versus Black Stars of Ghana double-header playoffs.
THEWILL recalls that returnee Eagles’ striker Ighalo netted a hat-trick in Al Hilal’s 4-2 triumph over Al Ahli on Friday. His goals helped the striker climb to the top of the Saudi Arabia’s scoring charts with 19 goals in 24 league matches this season.
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.
