Serie A leaders Lazio stayed unbeaten at the top of the table but saw their lead cut to a single point on Sunday, held to a 1-1 draw by a Napoli side whose manager needed this result far more than the visitors did.
Davide Frattesi fired Lazio ahead in the 28th minute at the Stadio Diego Armando Maradona, but half-time substitute Alfonso Pedraza turned a cross into his own net three minutes after the restart, and a point apiece leaves Lazio on 29 points, one clear of Inter, as reported by Reuters.
Frattesi strikes, then Lazio lose their grip
Gennaro Gattuso's side arrived in Naples on a run of six straight league wins and started like a team that expected a seventh. Gustav Isaksen fired just wide inside two minutes and then forced a flying save from Vanja Milinkovic-Savic, who also clawed away a Josip Sutalo header from a corner.
The breakthrough came from a classic counter-attack. Tijjani Noslin drove forward and slipped in Frattesi, arriving late in the box to drill a low shot past Milinkovic-Savic for his fourth goal of the season, a moment detailed in full by Football Italia.
Lazio then began to lose pieces. Sutalo went off with a muscular injury soon after the goal, and Napoli grew into the game. Rasmus Hojlund thought he had levelled in the 42nd minute, only for Christos Mandas to scramble the Dane's close-range effort off the line.
The substitute who changed the game the wrong way
Gattuso replaced Nuno Tavares at half-time, and his replacement had a nightmare start. Three minutes into the second half, Noa Lang crossed from the left and Pedraza, stretching to stop Scott McTominay volleying home, turned the ball into his own net.
Napoli pushed hard for a winner that would have transformed Massimiliano Allegri's week. Mandas, though, was outstanding, saving from McTominay at close range, denying Kevin De Bruyne in a one-on-one, and watching Diogo Leite clear the loose ball off the line. At the other end, Milinkovic-Savic kept out Matteo Cancellieri to preserve a point that is the first Napoli have taken from a league game after going behind this season.
So what does it mean?
For Lazio, the unbeaten run survives and top spot is theirs going into the international break, but the cushion is now one point after Inter beat Como, and Roma sit two points back. Rome's two clubs are, remarkably, the first from the same city to remain unbeaten after the opening 11 matches of a Serie A season. Gattuso played it down afterwards: "We don't really belong up there, we have to take it day by day."
For Napoli, 10th on 15 points, this is limited relief. Allegri has won only five of his opening 15 matches, sporting director Giovanni Manna called the situation "unacceptable" before kick-off, and this draw followed defeats to Juventus and a 4-1 Champions League loss at Porto. Allegri urged calm on DAZN: "There are difficult moments over the course of a campaign. I believe we need to deal with them in a spirit of calm, try to recover those who are injured, and bring simplicity and organisation to the situation."
Beyond the Final Whistle: this was a lifeline, not a turning point. Napoli fought, and a goalkeeper and an own goal kept Allegri's head above water, but a side with no clean sheet in eight games and 14 points to make up on the leaders cannot call one home draw a revival. Lazio, meanwhile, finally dropped points and still look like the most organised team in Italy. The title race did not open up in Naples; it tightened.
Napoli fans, is one point against the leaders enough to keep faith with Allegri, or does the change need to come during the international break? Let us know in the comments.
