MADRID, 14 Mar. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Italian Naples will seek this Wednesday (9:00 p.m.) to seal its first presence in the quarterfinals of the 2022-2023 Champions League, taking advantage of the good result and its superiority in the first leg against the German Eintracht Frankfurt (0-2) and counting with the turn in the Diego Armando Maradona.
Never in its history, not even when it had the stellar ‘Fluff’ in its ranks, has the Partenopean team been able to sneak into the top eight of the maximum continental competition, a barrier that is very close to jumping given what happened in the first game and the performance it is offering in the season.
Luciano Spalletti’s men are launched towards the conquest of the ‘Scudetto’ more than three decades after the club lifted it for the last time in 1990. Their state of confidence is maximum and their advantage in Serie A, 18 points over Inter, now allows you to focus your efforts on dreaming of everything in Europe.
Napoli were much better in the first chapter of this tie and now start as the clear favorite in their lively stadium, where this year they won everything in the group stage, with a resounding 4-1 against English Liverpool and eleven goals in total. In his league, he has only let five points slip from a draw (Lecce) and a defeat (Lazio), but he has only conceded nine goals and scored 33, showing his offensive and defensive balance.
It seems that the Neapolitan team will not reserve too much in search of closing any comeback attempt by Eintracht as soon as possible, which without pressure will seek to put as much emotion as possible into this round, but will have to sign a great defensive game to control the ‘trident’ ‘ offensive led by Georgian Jvicha Kvaratskhelia, Mexican Hirving Lozano and Nigerian Victor Osimhen. The South Korean center-back Kim, who is ‘touched’, and the Italian striker Politano are alert and will have to take care not to see a yellow card that deprives them of the first leg of the quarterfinals.
Opposite, a German team that has a difficult time lifting the adverse result at Deutsche Bank Park and that arrives at the duel without their best feelings after chaining four consecutive games without winning, with two defeats and two draws.
In addition, the coach Oliver Glasner will see his attacking potential significantly diminished because he will not be able to count on his best striker, the Frenchman Kolo Muani, sent off in the first leg, and he will not have another important man at his disposal up front like the Danish Jesper Lindstroem, so that the Colombian Rafael Santos Borré is emerging as the offensive reference.
Nor will he be able to count on the support of his enthusiastic fans, after the authorities in Naples have banned his presence at the Diego Armando Maradona Stadium for security reasons following the incidents in Germany.