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MOTD- Napoli 2-0 Arsenal

By on December 11, 2013

Napoli found themselves one goal short of a spot in the Champions League knockout stages as Arsenal got the job done despite the loss in Italy. The final minutes of the match was cruel to fingernails, but despite two late goals from Napoli Arsenal managed to keep themselves in front of their opponents in Champions League Group F. Coming into the match Arsenal seemed certain to come in second, yet Napoli needed just one more goal to take the spot in the Round of 16 right out of Arsenal’s clutches. Instead of a miracle, Napoli were sent crashing out of the competition in the harshest of way, and although they are not out of Europe, with the third place group finish only kicking them down to the Europa League, it wasn’t enough comfort to keep Gonzalo Higuain from tears.

Yet despite all the late drama, Arsene Wenger’s side made it through to the knockout stages for the fourteens year running and normality was resumed. However the loss will sting, as it means the Premier League leaders will have to face either Real Madrid, Barcelona, Paris Saint-Germain, Bayern Munich or Atletico Madrid in the Round of 16, and if they defend as poorly as they did against the counter-attacking brilliance of Napoli they’re out already. The visitors played very poorly especially in the opening minutes, in which they succumbed to Napoli’s early pressure.

Rafa Benitez’s side nearly took the lead after just nine minutes when Dries Mertens chipped a long-ball over Per Mertesacker to Goran Pandev, who only managed to scuff a weak shot into the arms of Wojciech Szczesny from the left side of the box. Olivier Giroud blasted a shot at Napoli goalkeeper Rafael soon after, but Napoli remained on top. The home side probably should have opened the scoring in the thirty-eighth minute when Christian Maggio attempted to chip the ball over the charging Szczesny on the right side of the box, but only succeeded in looping the ball miles over the bar.

Benitez’s side was nearly gifted the lead five minutes later as Szczesny’s mishit clearance flew straight to the head of Higuain, who only had enough time to snap a split-second head wide of the post. The home side was running out of time, and managed to up their pressure once they came as close as ever to opening the scoring thirteen minutes into the second half when Lorenzo Insigne flicked a cute pass through to the overlapping run of Pablo Armero down the left wing. The full-back skipped towards goal, but hesitated to long in taking his shot and ended up chipping an effort straight into the arms of Rafael.

Napoli continued to dominate in possession but failed to continue to create many chances, but the breakthrough they needed arrived just in time, in the seventy-second minute. Higuain exchanged passes with Insigne on the edge Arsenal box before spinning around with the ball and curling a low effort just past the diving fingers of Szczesny into the bottom corner to give his side serious hope of making the knockout stages. The Stadio San Paolo’s atmosphere grew even more blistering as Mikel Arteta was rightly shown a second yellow card after coming through the back of Jose Callejon in the seventy-sixth minute, reducing Arsenal down to ten men.

Ye the stadium grew quite when news flooded in that Kevin Grosskreutz had given Borussia Dortmund what would turn out to be a late winner in the other Group F game to send Napoli down to third unless they scored two goals in the remaining minutes. Although the home side came so close to that goal when Insigne flicked Callejon in on goal and the former flicked it above Szczesny into the back of the empty net, it was a mere consolation goal three minutes into the three minutes of added time and the final whistle blew right after the restart. Thus it was tears for Napoli and relief for Wenger.
Man of the Match: Gonzalo Higuain

About Alex Morgan

Alex Morgan, founder of Football Every Day, lives and breaths football from the West Coast of the United States in California. Aside from founding Football Every Day in January of 2013, Alex has also launched his own journalism career and hopes to help others do the same with FBED. He covers the San Jose Earthquakes as a beat reporter for QuakesTalk.com and his work has also been featured in the BBC's Match of the Day Magazine.