CorSport – Napoli, Conte v Spalletti: yin and yang clash Sunday | OneFootball

CorSport – Napoli, Conte and Spalletti like Yin and Yang: an unprecedented clash on Sunday

Every damned Sunday that Napoli and Juventus meet, the idea that this match was born to be special grows stronger. Yes, everyone puts in a little extra: genius and muscle, controversies and suspicions, tricks and whistles, history and geography, sociocultural conflicts, Sivori and Altafini, ungrateful or eternally grateful hearts, Diego and Michel, Zoff and Higuain, the engineer and the lawyer. There’s a whole world in the encyclopedia of the 158 Serie A encounters since 1929, 164 since 1926 if you include the 6 in the National Division championship, 184 official matches with cups, and 192 including friendlies, memorials, and summer trophies. There’s even the inaugural match at the old San Paolo stadium, now Maradona, on December 6, 1959, 66 years ago tomorrow, one day before the game. And yet, well, Napoli-Juve never ceases to amaze: for many reasons, it will be the great showdown between Conte and Spalletti, the very first of their careers despite a combined 1,686 matches on the bench (1,032 for Lucio and 654 for Antonio), of which 816 in Serie A (562 Lucio and 254 Antonio). Strong men, cynical fate.

The match will be important first and foremost for the standings: Napoli is first with Milan at 28 points, and Juventus is seventh with 23, 4 points away from the Champions League zone and desperately searching for new Scudetto chances until proven otherwise. Napoli will have to face a growing opponent without seven injured players and a midfield definitively destroyed after Lobotka’s fall, while Juve will play without Bremer, Gatti, and Vlahovic. In short, a significant evening. And then, as we know: what matters most is the Team, the supreme entity. All true, all correct: so why, this time, does it seem like we’re only talking about them? Antonio and Luciano, known as Lucio. Mainly because Sunday will be their first official clash: never crossed paths, never even brushed against each other in the league, in the Coppa Italia, or in a European cup in so many years of distinguished careers. At most, Conte succeeded Spalletti at Inter in 2019 and won the Scudetto in 2021; at most, they shared four benches, including the national team. The only precedent dates back to a friendly in the East in 2017: fate had already decided that the first real time would be a Napoli-Juventus eight and a half years later. Incredible. Cruel. Unmissable.

Maybe it’s because Conte is a Juventus institution, first as a player and then as a coach; or maybe because Spalletti has a tattoo dedicated to Napoli on his left forearm, was born the year the San Paolo was inaugurated, and is an honorary citizen of Naples. Maybe it’s because on Sunday the two coaches capable of winning the Scudetto with Napoli without Maradona will face off: Lucio in 2023, 33 years after the second, giving and receiving visceral love in an unrepeatable atmosphere; Antonio in May, building a skyscraper on the moon in the shape of the number 4. Spalletti, therefore, will return for the first time as an opponent after the Scudetto, the Pec, and the traumatic farewell, and he’ll do it at the helm of Juve, the eternal rival of Neapolitan sports fans, and after clarifying his sabbatical year from Italian teams. For his part, Conte will face Juventus after rumors—denied by him—of Juventus courting him to bring him back to the bench in June, after the parade of joy along the seafront, with the resulting disappointment of his old fans. Grand finale: the relationship between Spalletti and De Laurentiis is nonexistent, while Conte, Aurelio, and their respective families are bound by deep friendship. Yin and Yang: maybe it’s this, maybe it’s something else. It will be unprecedented.

Carlo Gioia

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇮🇹 here.