Napoli’s Callejon saves Benitez blushes

Napoli’s victory over Roma in the Derby del Sole is the kind of matches that makes a coach look like a genius. Jose Callejon’s late winner was the difference between both sides; but more than just awarding the victory to the Neapolitans, it vindicated Rafael Benitez’s tentative approach.

Rudi Garcia came into this game without a striker in his starting eleven, fielding a front-three of Gervinho, Michel Bastos, and Alessandro Florenzi. And if Benitez wanted anymore more of a handicap, Kevin Strootman’s early injury was it. I Lupi, toothless in attack without a prima punta (centre forward), were now declawed after losing their midfield lynchpin. Garcia stunned all by introducing Rodrigo Taddei to fill in as a holding midfielder.

The Brazilian deputized admirably. Taddei played quick, one-touch passes, and kept the midfield fluid. The 34-year-old drew on his experience and played simple, retaining possession to mostly protect Roma instead of risking turnovers through more proactive passing.

More surprising than Garcia’s on-the-spot tactical innovation, was Napoli’s passiveness. At this point Benitez outnumbered Roma in important areas of the field. From the start of the game, Benitez had one more striker than Roma. At the centre of the pitch Napoli employed a double-pivot against Roma’s only holder, the aforementioned Taddei.

So why didn’t Napoli take more risk? Cautiousness and confidence may both be the answer. As well as Taddei did, he struggled in his positioning.  Marek Hamsik often dropped into the spaces between the Brazilian and in the Giallorossi defense. The Napoli midfield took good advantage of Strootman’s absence as well by compressing midfield to force turnovers. The fact remains that Napoli still focused on countering – despite territorial dominance – and looked to exploit Roma’s mistakes rather than looking to unbalance Roma. The statistics reflected some of this in terms of the Partenopei’s ratio of interceptions (12) to attempts on goal (5).

Garcia showed his tactical acumen in the second half when Roma returned with a much clearer attacking strategy. The sudden loss of Strootman had clearly affected the team in terms of its buildup. The Napoli pressure had isolated Gervinho up top, and forced Roma to bypass the midfield and play long on the Ivorian.

In the second half the defense pushed up, with Maicon involving himself more in the play. Garcia’s knowledge of former Ligue 1 Faouzi Ghoulam’s more cautious style helped in this case as he coaxed Maicon to attack more. In midfield, Radja Nainggolan runs from deep helped overrun Napoli’s double pivot and opened up more space for Miralem Pjanic. Finally the team played quicker onto Gervinho and Bastos who came from deeper positions out wide to set themeselves up to run at Napoli’s defense.

Garcia’s riskier and more proactive approach was all made possible by Mehdi Benatia’s defending. The Moroccan closed the ball down quickly and in fact won all of his defensive duels outside his penalty area, which spoke to how much Roma had overturned the situation in the second half and pinned the Neapolitans back.

In the end Ghoulam’s cross picked out Callejon at the far post, which he headed off the crossbar and in. Napoli went ahead to hold their narrow lead into fulltime, with the end very much justifying the means as far as Benitez will be concerned.

It made sense for the Benitez to focus on countering a team that enjoys possession and exploits space very well through Gervinho’s pace. But Napoli were cast as the chasers here, which begs the question as to why Benitez took the risk of exposing himself to so much pressure. There might finally also be some disappointment, especially after Strootman’s exit and being the home side, that Benitez erred so much on the side of caution… but then again, in the only-results-matter world of Serie A football, maybe not.

Follow Ogo Sylla on Twitter at: @RossonerOgo_3