Napoli boss Luciano Spalletti expressed pride for his players despite the severe drop in focus within the last fifteen minutes of their 3-2 victory against Udinese at the Stadio Diego Armando Maradonna. “They have all been very painful, the final quarter of an hour of this race helps us to underline how much what the team is doing is not taken for granted,” stated the Tuscan tactician in the opening words of the post-match interview, as relayed by La Gazzetta dello Sport.
I Patenopei commenced in a convincing manner as they were clinical within the final third of the pitch, scoring three unanswered under 60th minute marker with the help of Victor Osimhen, North-Macedonian international Elif Elmas, and central midfielder Piotr Zielinski.
However, a decrease in precision enabled the Zebrette to attain a slight glimpse of hope as they managed substitutes Illija Nestorovski and Lazar Samardzic stunned the Azzurri with two goals in four minutes, decreasing the margin to only one goal separating both sides with ten mnutes left to play.
With Spalletti’s men securing their eleventh consecutive win and moving eleven points clear of second-placed Atalanta, the Napoli boss provided insight on his team’s display on Neapolitan soil:
I take this opportunity to thank the players for all these successes, they made a stratospheric first part of the championship. We are a beautiful group, including staff, employees and warehouse workers. I wanted to say it before anything else. With the break we will grow even more”
A stadium like this makes us feel even stronger and makes it easier for us to get excited and look for an extra spectacular play. Then we dropped in terms of pace, but we never have to think it’s over. Udinese have brought in important players and we must always keep the intensity high. Kim has so far been a Martian if we think that today’s half-mistake is in the news, on the other hand it would not be human otherwise. And to think that he has played them all so far. Meret then made a great intervention at the beginning of the game.”
