Napoli beat Barcelona 1-0 in what turned out to be a cagey encounter at Switzerland’s Stade de Geneve.
Blerim Dzemaili scored the only goal of the game ten minutes from time as Claudio Bravo’s error allowed his speculative long range attempt to bundle home.
Things started off with Barcelona enjoying possession early on and Ivan Rakitic and Andres Iniesta dictating most of the play.
None of Barcelona’s main three attackers, Lionel Messi, Luis Suarez or Neymar featured in the match with Rafael Alcantara leading the line for the Spanish club and it was his driving run that resulted in the first incident of note when he played in Pedro down the left channel in the eighth minute and there were half-hearted cries of handball as the Spanish international tried to cut inside a sliding Raul Albiol.
Napoli had their first chance just a couple of minutes later as Lorenzo Insigne sneaked in behind Gerard Pique, but failed to make contact with Marek Hamsik’s cleverly taken free kick.
Hamsik tested Claudio Bravo for the first time who made a fine save to keep out the Slovenian’s looping header from Jose Callejon’s freekick.
Napoli goalkeeper Rafael Cabral was called into action for the first time when he had to come out quickly to close down Munir El Haddadi who had been slid in by Rakitic with the youngster striking his shot into the Brazilian’s midriff.
The 18-year-old was played in again after a few minutes, this time by Alcantara, after he had made a clever run only to have his shot from a narrow angle saved by Rafael again.
The theme of the first half was Barcelona playing their patient possession game, and Napoli maintaining their solid shape and breaking forward quickly.
Pedro had two good chances after just five minutes of the restart. First, his shot was saved by Rafael when a half cleared corner fell to him just inside the box and then within a minute, Pique picked out Jordi Alba brilliantly who bombed forward to pullback for Pedro, but his shot went just narrowly wide of post.
Both teams made a host of substitutions after the hour mark and as a result, the match began to turn into a disjointed back-and-forth contest.
Dzemaili though scored the winner on his home-soil having been on the pitch for just 8 minutes, as Bravo made a hash of his long range attempt. It was the Chilean’s poor clearance under pressure from Michu that had made its way to the Swiss international in the first place, but his attempt from around 35-yards should have been a regulation save.
Substitute Gerard Deulofeu produced a wonderful save from Rafael seven minutes from time as he made space for a curler with some neat footwork that had taken him past three opponents.
A scramble in the box resulting from a Deulofeu freekick was Barcelona’s last attempt of the game, but Rafael once again cleared the ball, this time with his feet and away from the lurking Sandro Ramirez.
