The team merged, despite some good will. The coach is confused and doesn’t read the match. The public calling out “Aurelio, chase them all away”. Aurelio who, in his capacity as the head of the rotten fish, should hunt himself down and doesn’t. This is the situation today: “Here was Naples”, sang Roberto Murolo. Does the result matter? Here it is: 0-2 for Bologna. Napoli is out of the football that counts, the last ten years of construction and success have been erased, the image of corporate seriousness is gone. We have to witness the celebration of Bologna going to the Champions League. Yet during the week Luciano Spalletti he had explained what has jammed the heads of the players, who play the pale ghost of last year’s football and have never really detached themselves from it. Even earlier, Lozano had provided another piece of truth about the renewals at reduced salaries.
The truth emerges in pieces. Nothing is spared us. Not two goals from Bologna in three minutes: the usual header goal, with Di Lorenzo and the goalkeeper dazed on the first and Anguissa admiring the landscape on the second. Not the missed penalty, a penalty in reality, which Politano delivers to the goalkeeper, while a deluge of whistles descends from the stands and the word “mercenaries” is all the rage on social media. The best climate to take a penalty. We are not spared the donkey kick from referee Pairetto which allows Posh to belt and yank Kvara as he wants. And to tell the truth, we weren’t even spared the arrogance of Thiago Motta who on television, during the pre-match, said clearly that he came to win, with the tone of a Landsknecht in Rome. And let’s not even avoid the almost melina of Bologna who manages the result and taunts the Azzurri on the pitch showing off confidence, because then it’s not like they’ve had to squeeze out much so far. He shot on goal twice and scored two goals.
At halftime whistles. And this is. At the restart no changes, and why on earth, is there something wrong perhaps? Calzona, the worst of the three technicians. The first phase is a dignified but due football. Bologna lets their Napoli team wear out and defends itself, their opponent gets everything wrong. Napoli pulls off a year of never or makes a mistake, everyone makes mistakes, but under the pressure you can see what Bologna really is: a normal team, in a state of grace. But then what does the public and its summary trial want? Realize who you’re dealing with. The news arrived this morning that Napoli had requested that the match in Florence, scheduled for Friday 17 May, be moved to the following day. Reason? “Superstition”. Let’s hope for a denial from the company or a slightly more presentable explanation. For a year now, Napoli has already made its fans taste the entire symptomatology of the decline of reason. Having to suffer the ridicule of all of Italy for this bout of tribal superstition would be truly terrible. It should also be remembered that one of the most loved and most important players of the De Laurentiis twenty years, captain Marek Hamsik, wore the number 17 shirt for twelve seasons. Twelve years. But here it is as if the demon of management erraticness had been succeeded by that of ridiculousness. So this season ends in the worst way possible, marking Napoli’s exit from major football. De Laurentiis, elegant as always, could show up in Florence with a dress in keeping with his declarations: a black straw sombrero, with many red horns and a garlic necklace around his neck.
