Napoli Defeat Juventus in Cup Tie

Graphic courtesy of Gennaro De Crescenzo

Congratulations SSC Napoli for your much deserved victory over bitter rivals Juventus in yesterday’s Coppa Italia Final. Played behind closed doors at the Stadio Olimpico in Rome, the southern giants won the prestigious trophy 4-2 on penalties, thanks to goals by Lorenzo Insigne, Matteo Politano, Nikola Maksimovic, and Arek Milik.

While strong defending and phenomenal keeping by Gianluigi Buffon kept the scoreline clean during the match, it was ultimately Napoli’s Alex Meret’s heroics against Paulo Dybala (and a Danilo howler) during the shootout that gave the Partenopei their sixth Coppa Italia victory.*

After a disappointing start to the season under Carlo Ancelotti, new coach Gennaro Gattuso deserves a lot of praise for turning this team around. Still competing in the Champions League and with a lot of ground to make up in Serie A, we expect this great result to help inspire Napoli for the remainder of the season.

More than a brief respite from the ongoing world crises, Napoli’s triumph also symbolically gave us a Bourbon victory over the Savoy, that is to say a Southern victory over the North. Sure, it doesn’t make up for 150 years of colonization, emigration and discrimination, but at the very least for a day we got to stick it to Juve. Forza Napoli Sempre!

* Napoli last won the tournament in 2014 against Fiorentina.