Napoli will have their greatest test so far in this season’s Europa League when they play against Wolfsburg on Thursday night.
The Partenopei will travel to Germany for the first leg of the quarter finals on the 55th birthday of their coach Rafa Benitez, but it won’t be easy for his team to make it one to remember.
Napoli have not played against strong opposition so far and they will be facing an in-form Wolfsburg team. On the other hand, the Neapolitans shouldn’t be written off too quickly.
Benitez’s team have scored three times or more in a match on five occasions in the Europa League this season — the latest one was the 3-1 home win against Dinamo Moscow — but their opponents were not of outstanding quality.
Swiss side Young Boys was Napoli’s strongest opponent in Group I and they are currently ranked 66th in UEFA’s club rankings. The Partenopei destroyed Turkish team Trabzonspor 5-0 on aggregate in the Round of 32, who are currently ranked 59th in Europe.
Napoli have not been in impressive form recently in Serie A however. Their 3-0 win against Fiorentina on Sunday was their first Serie A win in six rounds, which brought them to fourth place in the league.
In contrast, Wolfsburg are in second place in the German Bundesliga and Dieter Hecking’s squad have only lost once in their last 16 league matches.
Wolfsburg have reached the quarter finals of the Europa League by eliminating stronger opposition than Napoli in this campaign. Despite losing both Group H games to Everton, Wolfsburg finished just one point behind them.
Hecking’s team eliminated Portuguese giants Sporting Clube 2-0 on aggregate in the Round of 32 and they have already demonstrated their supremacy over Italian opposition when they disposed of Inter 5-2 on aggregate in the Round of 16.
Napoli will be facing a team from one of Europe’s top four leagues for the first time this season but they don’t have to fear the German side either.
Although the win against Fiorentina was Napoli’s first in Serie A since February 23, there were some positives that Benitez would have taken from Sunday’s match.
Spanish winger Jose Callejon scored his first league goal in 13 matches and he created Marek Hamsik’s goal against Fiorentina.
Callejon’s goal was created by Lorenzo Insigne, who has recently recovered from a knee injury, and his return should eliminate the need for Benitez to use Jonathan De Guzman as a left-winger.
Although Gonzalo Higuain has not scored in the last four Serie A matches, he remains Napoli’s most prolific marksman in the Europa League with six goals in this campaign. Along with Club Brugge’s Lior Refaelov, he has scored more goals than any other play left in the competition.
Offensively Napoli have the weapons and their defence will need to be alert against the likes of Bas Dost, Kevin De Bruyne and Ivan Perisic. Benitez can however take pride in the fact his team have only conceded four times in 10 matches in the competition.
When Napoli last progressed beyond the quarter-finals in the Europa League, it was back in 1988-89 when they won the old UEFA Cup.
On their way to victory, the Partenopei defeated East German side Lokomotive Leipzig in the second round and West German teams Bayern Munich and VfB Stuttgart in the semi-finals and final respectively.
Triumphing over Wolfsburg would be a great birthday present for Benitez, and Napoli would prove to fans and media alike that they can match it with the Europa League’s best.
Not only that, but Napoli would be repeating the heroics of Diego Maradona and Co., when they defeated German opposition during their heyday.
