Napoli 0-2 Lazio: Serie A Match Report

Napoli 0-2 Lazio was a goal in each half for the visitors and none at all for a home side who had won four of their previous five. Half-time read 0-1 and the second period 0-1, so this was not a collapse but a steady removal of everything Napoli had brought into the afternoon.

Napoli were second on 66 points from 32 matches with a goal difference of +17, twelve behind Inter and three ahead of Milan. Their run was the sort a side chasing a title assembles: 2-1 over Torino, 2-1 against Lecce, 1-0 at Cagliari, 1-0 over Milan, 1-1 at Parma. Four wins, three of them by a single goal, and only two goals conceded across the five.

Lazio were tenth on 44 with +2, twenty-two points back and out of the European conversation, but in form that made a difficult day plausible: 2-1 over Sassuolo, 1-0 against Milan, 2-0 at Bologna, 1-1 with Parma, 0-1 at Fiorentina. A side that had already beaten Milan this month arriving to face the team above them. Napoli had won the reverse fixture 2-0 in Rome in January — the exact scoreline, reversed.

Lazio moved to 47 points and a goal difference of +4, a second win of the month against a club in the top three and a result that made their tenth place look like an understatement of how they were playing. Nothing in it changed their season, which had been settled as mid-table for some time.

Napoli stayed on 66 with the difference cut to +15, and the damage was to the chase rather than the position. Inter's lead was now twelve with five rounds to play, which for practical purposes ended the title argument, and Milan on 63 were within three. A side who had been winning 1-0s all month lost a home match by two without scoring, and in a run-in that tight, a first blank in this stretch is expensive.

Our pre-match call was Napoli Win at 1.70, rated high confidence. It lost, and the confidence was the error rather than the selection. Napoli's four wins in five had come by margins of one goal three times; that is a team winning, not a team dominant. Lazio had beaten Milan 1-0 in the same stretch and had conceded once in four of their previous five. Backing a narrow-margin home side at a short price against opponents defending that well was taking the wrong end of a fixture that the numbers said would be tight. Verdict: lost