Ancelotti, Napoli victorious over Lazio to kick off Serie A
By Eric McCoy
Carlo Ancelotti and Napoli kicked off their Serie A campaign with a 2-1 win over Lazio on Saturday, but were notably different in style from last season.
Carlo Ancelotti has won a league title in four of the five major European leagues. He didn’t win a league title in La Liga, but he did guide Spanish giants Real Madrid to their tenth ever European cup (oh yeah, he’s won a few of those, too. Three, if you’re counting at home.)
This season at Napoli, Ancelotti is replacing a manager who has won none of those honors. And yet, after last season’s second place Serie A finish, the feeling pervades that Napoli fans should brace themselves for a decline now that Maurizio Sarri, his cigarettes, and his scintillating brand of soccer have gone to Chelsea.
Has the sport passed the 59-year-old Ancelotti by? Bayern Munich thought so when they “parted ways” with Ancelotti after an embarrassing 3-0 defeat to PSG in the Champions League group stage last season. At Bayern, Ancelotti had followed the ever-innovative Pep Guardiola as manager and during his time in Bavaria the Italian found his tactics (or lack thereof) to be the subject of scrutiny. “He is…not so fascinated by tactics,” Bayern right-back Rafinha said of Ancelotti.
One match is not going to provide a definitive answer to the question of whether or not Ancelotti still possesses the required managerial acumen to be successful in the modern European game. But, after a skittish start, his Napoli were largely impressive in kicking off their Serie A campaign with a 2-1 victory over Lazio this past Saturday.
Napoli played in a familiar 4-3-3 formation, but with a few notable variations from last season. Arkadiusz Milik, a fairly orthodox center forward, started up top in place of Dries Mertens, who is still regaining fitness from World Cup duty and is anything but an orthodox center forward. Also significant, was the role in which Marek Hamsik was deployed. Under Sarri, Hamsik played as the furthest forward of Napoli’s midfield three, but against Lazio he was positioned as the pivot, essentially sliding into the role that the now-departed Jorginho excelled in for the Partenopei.
These alternations to the glorious Sarri-ball template from last season initially made for awkward viewing. Many aging attacking midfielders have had success in recent years at moving back and playing in deeper positions as their careers have entered their twilight stages, but Hamsik, at least early on against Lazio, looked uncomfortable with his new deep-lying responsibilities.
As they often did last season, Lazio opted to play in a 3-5-1-1 formation. Manager Simone Inzaghi likes to have his Lazio team crowd the center of the pitch and force the opposition out wide. Hamsik, who does not have the line-splitting passing ability of Jorginho (in fairness, not many do), struggled to progress the ball forward in any meaningful way during the match’s opening stages. There were simply too many Lazio players crowding potential central passing lanes, so Hamsik and his fellow Napoli teammates were forced to shift the ball out wide where their attacks would meekly fizzle out.
Exacerbating the problems Napoli were having moving the ball forward, was the positioning of their front three, particularly Milik. Mertens’ renaissance as a striker under Sarri had plenty to do with his ability to drop into midfield areas and receive the ball in front of the opposition’s backline. Milik, a far more stationary striker than Mertens, was not near as active an outlet for potential forward passes against Lazio. As a result, Milik (and to lesser degrees wingers Lorenzo Insigne and Jose Callejon) were frequently isolated early in the match.
Next. The 20 biggest egos in soccer. dark
When Lazio would win possession from Napoli, they often looked to play the ball forward quickly to striker Ciro Immobile. With nominal number 10, Luis Alberto, spending much of his time withdrawing into the midfield to create overloads, Immobile was mostly tasked generating Lazio’s scoring chances on his own. In the 25thminute, Immobile was on the receiving end of a long pass forward in behind the Napoli backline. Once on the ball, Immobile utilized a silky bit of skill to humiliate three Napoli defenders and fire home an excellent shot to put Lazio up 1-0.
As the first half neared its conclusion, however, the dynamics of the match changed. Diminutive, but authoritative, the 5’4 Insigne began to exert a big influence on proceedings. The Italian winger dropped his positioning a bit to receive the ball with greater frequency on the left side of Napoli’s midfield and became the Partenopei’s creative hub. Insigne amassed more touches than any other member of Napoli’s front three and that was despite being subbed off for Mertens in the 76thminute. 45 percent of Napoli’s total possession in the match ended up being on the left side of the pitch where Insigne was wreaking his havoc (stats per WhoScored).
In first half stoppage time Insigne’s hyperactivity paid off when inside Lazio’s half he played beautiful cross to Callejon, who then centered the ball nicely to Milik. The orthodoxy of the Polish forward’s positioning paid off in this instance, as he had no trouble slotting home the equalizer from inside the six-yard box.
The second half ended up looking a lot like the final fifteen or so minutes of the first half. Napoli were dominant in possession and Lazio failed to do much of anything going forward during the occasions when they did have the ball. Lazio’s lack of attacking threat meant Napoli midfielders Allan and Piotr Zielinski were able to contribute freely to their team’s attack. For Napoli’s second goal, which arrived in the 59thminute, Allan was not far from Lazio goalkeeper Thomas Strakosha’s six-yard box when he got a crucial touch on an Elseid Hysaj cross to push the ball out to Insigne who smashed home a great finish.
If one doesn’t look too closely, Napoli’s win over Lazio might seem like business as usual or, in other words: no Sarri, no problem. Napoli played away to what was one of the better teams in Serie A last season and not only came away victorious, but did so while seeing a Sarri-esque 65 percent of the ball. But the reality of the situation isn’t quite so simple.
After a shaky start, Napoli were fine against Lazio, but the loss of Jorginho seems to have had an adverse effect on their trademark rapid-fire vertical passing exploits, and that means adjustments are needed to the team’s playing style. Ancelotti received criticism for his hands-off managerial style at Bayern, but how well he can ultimately navigate the transition to a new approach (as similar as it may be in some ways to the old approach) will go a long way to determining if he still deserves to be considered one of European soccer’s top managers.