Ajax-Napoli: 1 to 6. Spalletti’s boys’ show: the team that has fun also wins in Amsterdam

It’s a Naples cheeky, who in the shadow of Vesuvius would become “disrespectful”, the one who crashes Ajax at Cruijff Arena of Amsterdam for 6 to 1 and takes his seventh consecutive victory. A Napoli that does not like pauses, does not look at the possible rank of the opponent in the face and has fun, a lot.

An almost unprecedented match: the last confrontation in 1970, for the rest the elements that have united Ajax and Napoli in the last 50 years have been in order: the declared cheering of Jari Litmanen for Napoli, the passage of Milik in blue and the missed one of Klaasen.

He had never won Napoli in the Netherlands in European competitions, he does so in a game that, at least at the beginning, seems to be Premier League and in which it is Ajax who take the lead after 9 minutes: the action is beautiful, the goal is lucky with Kudus who is simply hit by his partner’s slightly lopsided shot and ends the ball in the goal.

But perhaps the most pleasant news of Napoli this year it is the tendency not to get morose in the face of difficulties, and in fact Spalletti’s boys seem to have a lot of fun: first Kvaratskhelia goes very close to scoring, then Jack Raspadori finds him again.

Olivera’s cross is perfect, Raspadori’s header while diving to cross on the second paleo is smart and beautiful.

And if for a long time the characteristic of Napoli was that of try to impose your own game to avoid difficulties, a sort of light always on for the terror of the dark, the feeling today is that the negotiation mechanism has been set aside, accepting the difficulty in order to react stronger.

And in fact Napoli finds the advantage in the 33rd: Kvaratskhelia paints on a corner kick and Di Lorenzo bags the two to one again with his head. He could make the third fol Zielinski but his curse with the opposing goalkeepers seems to continue … but only for a short time, since at the end of the first half he runs off on the break and finds the three to one.

And the break that separates the first from the second half for Napoli must be a break as they are ready to go and as with Liverpool they find 4 to 1 in the first minutes of the second fraction: again with Jack Raspadoristill on a ball recovered on the trocar by a ravenous team.
Ajax gets nervous and ends up in 10, given the expulsion of a second yellow card Dusan Tadic usually energetic and effective, this time alone and too energetic.

And the signing of Kvaratskhelia also arrives shortly after: with a one-two that looks like training stuff for the ease with which he succeeds with Jack Raspadori this time in the finishing phase that opens the way to the 21-year-old Georgian for the right at the far post which is valid for the Dinamo Batumi’s first goal in the Champions League and his sixth in this incredible start to the season.

First for him, twelfth for Napoli in three games: three wins out of three, with two games played away from home, twelve goals scored and two conceded in a group that is not terrible but far from easy. But the data with this team are uncertain: in fact, the thirteenth goal in three games also arrives: the 6 to 1 is from Simeone, on an assist from Tanguy Ndombelè who also captures the crossbar at the end, a wood that avoids the 7 to 1 final that on balance it would not even have been exaggerated. It is a beautiful Naples, a great Naples that of this first part of the season: the Champions League round of 16 are close at hand and probably the head of the group with two home games still to be played … who knows the rest.