The olfactory got the better of Lautaro Martínez in old Napoli. Inter’s captain could have sworn he smelled fear. He looked over at Antonio Conte, the man who made Martínez a champion, and repeatedly clenched his thumb and forefinger together. He was gesturing the bowel movements provoked, not by a plate of contaminated pesce crudo, but by the threat of violence upon turning down a dark alley and spotting trouble.
Federica Zille, DAZN’s astute sideline reporter, chose not to translate Lautaro’s hand signal for what it was; a quivering sphincter. The Argentinian was instead, Zille diplomatically suggested, accusing his former coach of cowardliness in the game between champions and last year’s runner-up.
Lautaro Martinez of Inter confronts Antonio Conte, the Napoli manager (Francesco Pecoraro/Getty Images)
It was, on the one hand (pun intended), a strange thing to do. Lautaro’s reaction came after Conte, now in charge of Napoli, confronted Denzel Dumfries over a challenge on one of his players, Mathias Olivera. Inter’s towering wing-back isn’t quite twice the size of Conte, but it would have been a mismatch, and the Napoli coach didn’t think twice about taking him on. Lautaro then dashed across and had to be restrained by Nicolo Barella, who acted more like a skipper than the Inter player actually wearing the armband.
“Cagón,” Lautaro shouted at Conte, as if to say he’d soiled his Armani trousers. Perhaps Lautaro was referencing Conte’s decision to walk out on Inter in 2021 amid the fire sales of Achraf Hakimi and Romelu Lukaku, which were necessary at the start of a financial crisis that would, three years later, lead to Chinese owners Suning losing possession of the club to lenders Oaktree. Otherwise, Lautaro’s sense of smell seemed to desert him. After all, Conte has never been one to back down from a fight.
Saturday was no different.
Fight club
The way Conte saw it, Inter came to the Stadio Maradona on Saturday “to kill us”. The knives were figuratively sharpened and glinted under the floodlights.
For days, Conte had been giving off the impression of feeling surrounded. It had been a bad week for the champions. First, an injury-ravaged Napoli lost to Torino. Then, in the Champions League, things got even worse. Before the game against PSV in Eindhoven, 230 Napoli fans were stopped and deported from the Netherlands. Maybe in hindsight it was for the best, as Napoli were beaten 6-2 at the Philips Stadion — their heaviest defeat in all competitions since 1997.
Fabio Capello, now a Sky pundit, discerned an uncharacteristically passive and resigned Conte in the dugout. “Next time I’ll come out with a whip and a chair, like a lion-tamer,” Conte said. It was Inter who got lashes.
Napoli show why they’re champions
The visitors had won seven in a row since defeat against Juventus in the Derby d’Italia in early September and had been getting better and better. As Conte told DAZN afterwards, “in absolute, Inter are the best team there is in Italy”. They did not disappoint in the first half in Naples. Early on, Leonardo Spinazzola made a mistake similar to the one Billy Gilmour committed last week, one that cost Napoli dear against Torino. But unlike Giovanni Simeone, El Toro Martínez did not take advantage of it.
Then, after going behind, Alessandro Bastoni headed against the crossbar and Dumfries did the same against the post. Menacingly, Inter were knocking on the door. When Hakan Calhanoglu got Inter back into the game before the hour mark, it looked like they might not only go on and make it 2-2 but perhaps even leave the Maradona with a win.
Alas…
If only Inter had been as calm and collected as their coach, Cristian Chivu. He was impressive for how he kept his head while the Inter players around him lost theirs following the Dumfries-Olivera incident and Lautaro’s verbals with Conte. “I don’t know what happened (between them) and I’m not in the least bit interested by it,” he said. “But I’ll talk to my players, because we can’t throw away all our good work for an argument with the opposition dugout. We have got to think about who we are and where we want to go.”
Where Inter lost the game
Tempers were running high and concentration levels were low when Inter, six minutes after Conte gestured to Lautaro to keep talking, let the goal in that killed the would-be killers. Each of the three strikes Inter allowed in this 3-1 defeat was disappointing in its own way. The first was, to borrow the phrase of Inter’s president Beppe Marotta, a rigorino — the softest of penalties. Kevin De Bruyne badly injured himself converting it, reaching for his hamstring and having to come off. And so even though Inter went behind, Napoli appeared, theoretically, weaker for it.
The momentum was then with Inter such that they let themselves get carried away by it. The defence was all over the place for Scott McTominay’s goal. Bastoni thought Calhanoglu was tracking the Serie A MVP. When he realised he wasn’t, he implored goalkeeper Yann Sommer to come off his line and meet him. McTominay still had a lot to do. The ball over the top from Spinazzola went in and out of vision. “I lost it in the lights, to be honest,” McTominay said. “The lights are so bright, I couldn’t see it. It took me by surprise.” He, in turn, surprised Sommer by taking his shot so early, coordinating with the ball perfectly from distance.
Andre-Frank Zambo Anguissa’s winner ultimately came from a simple throw-in. Inter were caught on the hop again, and failed to react to the quick one-touch play by Matteo Politano and Napoli’s false nine David Neres, who sent the Man of the Match on a rampaging run through desperate and sliding defenders. For the remainder of the game, as if Italy needed a reminder, the Maradona proudly sang “We are the champions”.
Napoli lifted themselves up off the floor and showed what they are made of. They disarmed and faced down their assassins. “We had no desire to die,” Conte said.
Go get your daddy
Back on top of the table, he stood over his rivals and put the boot in. When Conte heard Marotta had been on TV to complain about the penalty awarded against Napoli, he described it as a major escalation. Marotta is no longer a mere executive, like he was when Conte worked for Inter — he is now president of the club.
“With all the respect I have for (Marotta), he should leave what happens on the pitch to who was in charge of the game and not intervene because otherwise in this case he undermines his coach, and that’s not OK. I’ve never asked my president to come down and be daddy. I’ve always defended myself on my own,” Conte said on DAZN with a wry smile.
In the press conference that followed, Conte looked his doubters in the eye and asked: “How can you destroy everything in a week? That’s my question.” Did a few bad results really demolish all he’d built over the last year? “Sometimes there’s a lack of respect for the work that gets put in,” he said. “Everything gets blown out of proportion, and there’s a limit.”
In Eindhoven four days earlier, Conte had been derided for saying Napoli signed too many players in the summer. In the past, he’d given the impression that clubs never bought him enough of them. But what he meant was clear: those recruits need time to adapt; they have to enter into the spirit of the dressing room. Finding the right formula on the pitch is a chemistry experiment, and Napoli are still experimenting — by subtraction too.
Antonio Conte’s Napoli are dealing with several injuries to key players (Francesco Pecoraro/Getty Images)
The spine of their scudetto-winning side is injured. Alex Meret broke a bone in his foot last week. Amir Rrahmani, Stanislav Lobotka and Lukaku are all still out. Now De Bruyne is too.
Most coaches would be bricking it in this situation. But not Conte. Towards the end of his time with Inter, he had called Lautaro a diva and Big-Time Charlie for kicking water bottles in anger after a substitution against Roma. The Inter players then organised a mock boxing match at Appiano Gentile. Lukaku, now a Napoli player, played the Michael Buffer role, as Lautaro and Conte stepped over the taped cones into the improvised ring and gloved up.
On Saturday, it wasn’t a knockout, but Conte won by points decision.
Meanwhile, Lautaro needs to be careful. The gesture he made to Conte was the same one Inter’s detractors tossed their way at the end of last season when they lost the title on the domestic campaign’s final day and then the Champions League final 5-0 to PSG. The stain of that still lingers and, as good as Inter have been this season, the defeats they have suffered to Juventus and particularly Napoli could come back to haunt them in a league where head-to-head is the principal tiebreaker.
Milan slip up
Conte did not expect to reclaim first place when Milan, the leaders going into the weekend, were playing promoted Pisa at San Siro. But this is Serie A, a league with four different winners in six years and a volatility that continues to make this decade one of the most compelling in its history.
Max Allegri made his debut as a player for Pisa against Milan back in 1989. “I was lucky,” the Milan coach recalled. “I remember the old owner, Romeo Anconetani, with great affection. He was a visionary. I wonder what he would have made of the game today.”
The late Anconetani was so superstitious he used to spread salt around the pitch before home games. Still winless on their return to the top flight, Pisa have at least proven tough to beat. “They’ve played well in every game apart from against Bologna when they were down to 10 and let in four,” Allegri observed. “They’re physical and very good at set pieces. We’ll need to be careful when defending and show them great respect.”
Still, no one thought Pisa would be beating Milan going into stoppage time. The Towers, as nobody calls them, were leaning towards their first win at San Siro in 44 years, a time when both clubs were in the second tier.
Rafa Leão had given Milan the lead early with a shot from distance.
“We didn’t get presumptuous,” Allegri insisted. “But after going ahead, maybe we thought the game would be easier than anticipated — and games are never easy in Serie A.” In their search for a second goal, Milan lost their shape and didn’t have a change-up. Christian Pulisic, Ruben Loftus-Cheek, Adrien Rabiot and Pervis Estupinan were all injured and watching from the stands. Pisa coach Alberto Gilardino had twice as many players on the bench as Allegri, including Gigi Buffon’s son, Louis. Buffon Jr didn’t get to tread the boards at the Scala del Calcio on this occasion. Gilardino opted for the experienced Juan Cuadrado instead.
Panita (Buddy), as Cuadrado is known, played for Allegri at Juventus. They won four league titles together and, in the celebrations after one of them, the Colombia international leapt on Allegri’s back and covered his head in shaving foam. He made Friday’s game a close shave too. Pisa equalised when his shot struck Koni De Winter’s hand and the referee awarded a penalty. “If I’d been in goal, I would have saved it,” Allegri joked to Cuadrado afterwards. But he wasn’t — and the 37-year-old beat Mike Maignan from the spot.
Juan Cuadrado of Pisa scores a penalty against Milan (Marco Luzzani/Getty Images)
Five minutes from the end, it looked like Pisa had wrapped things up. A long ball caused confusion and a collision in the Milan defence. Mbala N’Zola couldn’t believe his luck and made no mistake in his one-v-one against Maignan. A first win of the season, and a famous one too, was only seconds away. But one of the few subs Allegri had available, Zachary Athekame, hit and hoped — and scored — to make it 2-2.
“I don’t know whether I’m more p***ed off about the result or more chuffed with the performance,” Gilardino huffed afterwards.
Unlike Inter, who have dropped points against past and contemporary rivals for the scudetto, Milan have the opposite issue. They have done better than expected against the top sides and worse against the teams that came up from Serie B.
“We lost to Cremonese,” Allegri acknowledged. “So maybe at the end of the season, we’ll look at this draw against Pisa as a point gained rather than two points dropped.”
Sucker punch
Igor Tudor was looking forward to playing teams such as Cremonese and Pisa. The embattled Juventus coach had been complaining about the difficult run of fixtures that was due to come to an end after this weekend’s trip to Rome to face Lazio. Alas, another defeat, the third in a row in all competitions, spelt the end. Tudor was sacked on Monday morning.
There was a time when Juventus always gave managers until the end of a season before making a judgement. That has changed in the past 18 months. Juventus cut short Allegri’s second spell at the club in the aftermath of the 2024 Coppa Italia final, when there were two league games still to play. Thiago Motta, his successor, lasted until March of this year. His replacement Tudor got seven months.
The volatility is indicative of the restlessness of a club that is no longer itself. Juventus have struggled for identity at boardroom level ever since Andrea Agnelli’s resignation in the winter of 2022. His cousin John Elkann has delegated to executives from the family holding company’s other businesses. The sporting director he hired from Napoli, Cristiano Giuntoli, was fired at the end of last season. Damien Comolli, Juventus’ new general manager, decided to give Tudor the benefit of the doubt. It now falls to him to find the next guy.
Luciano Spalletti is available, although whether Juventus can afford him with Motta and Tudor still on the payroll remains to be seen. A new board is to be selected at the beginning of next month. Tether, the crypto firm, has been increasing its shareholding in Juventus and has put forward its candidates. But for now, Elkann must find a way to imbue Juventus with the spirit of the Agnelli family, who have owned the Turin club for more than a century.
Do as the Romans do
Overtaking Milan and joining Napoli on 18 points were Roma. The dynamics were similar to the team they caught up with on Sunday afternoon. For the first time this season, people were beginning to doubt Roma. They lost a close game 1-0 to Inter at the Olimpico last weekend and then suffered humiliation there against Viktoria Plzen in the Europa League on Thursday, beaten 2-1.
“More than anything, we lacked toughness,” Paulo Dybala complained in the flash interview that followed the game. “We went out there and we were soft. It’s awful to say that, because we train well during the week and watch lots of videos. For a while now, we’re not executing what we do in training on the pitch.”
Some thought Dybala may have overstepped the mark, and manager Gian Piero Gasperini had to have a word with him. But here was someone who knows what it takes to win things, sharing his experience. In Reggio Emilia on Sunday, Dybala artfully thrashed a loose ball into the roof of the net and scored the only goal of the game against in-form Sassuolo. Perfect on the road this season, it was Roma’s fourth 1-0 win in the eight Serie A fixtures — not a scoreline people expect from a Gasperini team, which, once again, started striker-less.
Dybala was up front, as in his Palermo days, with Leon Bailey and Bryan Cristante in support. Cristante has been a No 6 since joining Roma in 2018 but before that had played as a box-crashing 10 to great effect under Gasperini at Atalanta. “We’re experimenting in real time,” Gasperini said afterwards.
Evan Ferguson did not get on despite, in Gasperini’s words, putting “training right for the first time this season” the day before. The Irishman, as Gasperini keeps saying, has featured in nine of Roma’s 11 games in all competitions. But he’s 21, barely played last season (three league starts for West Ham on loan and for parent club Brighton), and has had injuries in the past. It remains to be seen if he features in midweek against Parma. For now, Ferguson is still looking for his first goal in Italy.
Jamie Vardy isn’t. He smashed a rebound home to give Cremonese the lead in a 1-1 home draw against Atalanta. To anyone making the Lautaro gesture at me for not devoting more column inches to this feat, be warned.
Jamie Vardy scored his first Serie A goal for Cremonese this weekend (Emmanuele Ciancaglini/Getty Images)
We’ll be back after the games sotto i riflettori (under the lights) on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday — the pick of which is another mini Lombard derby: Atalanta vs Milan.
In the meantime, chat s**t, get banged.
