Napoli suffers again under Claudio Ranieri’s Cagliari in ‘zona Cesarini’

Napoli‘s miserable title defense continued with a 1-1 draw against Cagliari.Photo: Luigi Canu/IPA Sport/Shutterstock” src=”https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/ZLp6f56s5pGv4W5zt3eQ9A–/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjt3PTk2MDtoPTU3Ng–/https://media.zenfs.com/en/theguardian_763/176e3192568b8cb0 257ccf794a40485c” data-src= “https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/ZLp6f56s5pGv4W5zt3eQ9A–/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjt3PTk2MDtoPTU3Ng–/https://media.zenfs.com/en/theguardian_763/176e3192568b8cb0257cc f794a40485c”/>

In Italy, the final moments of a football match are known as the zone Cesarini: a reference to Renato Cesarini, the former Juventus midfielder who cemented his reputation for late goals with a 90th-minute winner for the national team against Hungary in 1931. The term has long been in common use, describing everything from political deals to properly arrived at before a vote on homework assignments submitted by the deadline.

Maybe it’s time for an update. In Serie A this season it is stoppage time for Claudio Ranieri’s Cagliari. The Sardinians have had a difficult season and are joint second from bottom in the table, but the prospects could be much worse.

Related: European roundup: Modric stuns Sevilla with late winner for Real Madrid

Against Frosinone last October, they did something no Serie A team had ever done before: win after trailing by three goals in the 71st minute. Cagliari were still 3-2 down in the 90th, but Leonardo Pavoletti struck twice to give them a 4-3 victory. Two months later they recovered from a losing position and defeated Sassuolo 2-1.

All this is to say that Napoli should have known better than to believe the job was done as their match against Cagliari ticked past the 95 minutes played. The Partenopei were 1-0 up halfway through the second half after a Victor Osimhen header. Both Matteo Politano and Giovanni Simeone had missed late chances to extend their lead. With a few seconds left, Alberto Dossena threw one last hopeful ball towards Napoli’s penalty area from his own half. Juan Jesus misinterpreted the flight and let Zito Luvumbo slip behind. The Cagliari forward bounced it, controlled it with his chest and then turned to fire into the corner.

The Unipol Domus Stadium erupted when Luvumbo, with a hamstring in his hand, was choked by teammates. Every point counts when you’re fighting relegation and Cagliari have now earned seven with goals in second-half stoppage time. Can we do it? zone Ranieri? In October, the manager predicted: “I’m sure we will keep ourselves in Serie A the way we got here: in the last second of the last game.”

The story continues

If that is the story of Cagliari, this result fits the story of Napoli’s catastrophic campaign just as well. After winning Serie A for the first time in 33 years, they followed up with one of the worst title defenses of all time. They sit ninth in the table and are 29 points behind leaders Inter.

They are due for their third manager of the season. Francesco Calzona officially took charge last Monday, although his first training session was a day later – less than 36 hours before Napoli hosted Barcelona in the last 16 of the Champions League. Under the circumstances, their 1-1 draw in that match could be considered a good result. It was harder to find positives in these lost points against Cagliari. “The problem is purely mental,” says Calzona. “We have to stay in the game and move more for each other. We are starting to look more and more like a team, but we only do it in phases.”

How did we get here? Napoli not only won Serie A last season, but completely dominated it. He finished sixteen points clear of first place, with more goals scored and fewer goals conceded than anyone else in the division. Late in the season, there were small hints that some of the magic was fading. Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, the eventual winner of the Serie A MVP award, has not scored since March. Napoli dropped just seven points from their first 24 league games, but lost or drew half of the remaining fourteen.

We now know that the relationship between Napoli’s manager and owner deteriorated. Luciano Spalletti heard via email that Aurelio De Laurentiis had chosen to extend his contract for another year. Was this the cause of a malfunction or a symptom? Depending on whose story you believe, Spalletti was offended or was simply looking for an excuse to justify the decision he had already made to leave at the end of the campaign.

De Laurentiis has since insisted that activating the option was a formality, intended as a first step before renegotiating to reward the manager with better terms. Spalletti paints a more complicated picture of his former employer, telling La Gazzetta dello Sport: “There are four or five [versions of De Laurentiis] and I’m not talking about his sons… There is the grateful, the melancholic, the vindictive, the one who acts behind the scenes.’

The owner has acknowledged faults in what came next. Rudi Garcia was appointed manager but sacked in November when Napoli finished fourth. De Laurentiis later said he regretted not making this decision immediately after hearing the Frenchman admit during his introductory press conference that he had not watched the title-winning series. Still, that statement begged the question: What had they talked about during the interview?

Walter Mazzarri was next. De Laurentiis hoped his familiarity with the club, which he guided to Champions League qualification twice in four seasons in early 2010, would make him the perfect ferryman to find calmer waters and navigate the rest of this season. Instead, Mazzarri’s Napoli scored nine Serie A goals in 12 games – the fewest of any team in the competition during his tenure.

AC Milan 1-1 Atalanta, Lecce 0-4 Inter, Cagliari 1-1 Napoli, Juventus 3-2 Frosinone, Genoa 2-0 Udinese, Salernitana 0-2 Monza, Sassuolo 2-3 Empoli, Bologna 2-0 Verona.

Monday Roma against Torino, Fiorentina against Lazio.

The circumstances hurt him. Osimhen, of the division Capocannière he was barely available during Mazzarri’s tenure last season. He recovered from a hamstring injury in time to make a handful of appearances before heading to the Africa Cup of Nations. Despite returning exhausted, he has scored in both games under Calzona so far.

Yet the same side suffered absences for Osimhen at the start of last season, with Simeone and Giacomo Raspadori stepping up to fill the void. Neither the attack nor the midfield that supported him lost significant pieces during the summer. Central defender Kim Min-jae became the only starter to leave when Bayern Munich activated his €58 million release clause. And if this group did need better coverage, wouldn’t that also be De Laurentiis’s responsibility? He described the role of sporting director as “not central” after Cristiano Giuntoli, a man widely credited with signing Kvaratskhelia, left for Juventus in the summer.

Squad planning has felt chaotic since then, with no adequate replacement found for Kim and Napoli looking to provide cover for Osimhen in January and Piotr Zielinski, who was left out of Napoli’s squad for the Champions League knockouts – despite he started regularly in Serie A – as he expects to join Inter when his contract expires this summer.

At a press conference earlier this month, De Laurentiis defended his record as club president in advance, noting that Napoli had ended 2023 with a profit of almost €80 million. He pointed to the fact that his family owns Bari, who finished third in Serie B last season, as another net benefit for Napoli, allowing for the development of a larger group of players, and spoke about the upcoming film his media have released. company Filmauro produced on last year’s Scudetto victory.

None of this will make supporters feel any better about seeing their team in mid-table. “In the situation we find ourselves in, we just have to think game by game,” Calzona said when asked what his team can still aim for this season. “There is no point in talking about projects right now… but until the math convicts us, we must aim for the highest goals.”

The gap with fifth place – who could retain a spot in the Champions League – is nine points, and Napoli still have thirteen games in hand. A lot can happen in the zone Cesarinias this weekend’s opponents can attest.