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·31 August 2024

Serie A | Napoli 2-1 Parma: Lukaku decisive on debut for Conte

Romelu Lukaku scored on his Napoli debut and David Neres assisted the stoppage-time Andre Frank Zambo Anguissa winner to turn impressive 10-man Parma around late on.

The Partenopei had a chaotic start to this season, losing at Verona and beating Bologna, bringing in deadline day signings like Romelu Lukaku and Scott McTominay, but being stuck with Victor Osimhen after failed transfers. Fabio Pecchia’s side were unbeaten after holding Fiorentina and defeating Milan, but Hernani, Yordan Osorio and Adrian Benedyczak were still out of action.

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See how it all unfolded on the Liveblog.

Parma also lost Emanuele Valeri after just seven minutes to a suspected adductor strain. However, they came so close to opening the scoring, as first Mateusz Kowalski’s header hit the underside of the bar, then the move continued and Ange-Yoan Bonny’s strike from the edge of the area thumped the upright.

The Ducali got their breakthrough, as after Simon Sohm made a strong run from midfield, he was crowded out and Bonny got to the loose ball before Alex Meret for a penalty. Bonny converted it himself to give Parma the shock lead.

Delprato showed brave defending by flinging himself in the path of a powerful Khvicha Kvaratskhelia volley and Adrian Bernabé drilled just wide of the near post.

Giacomo Raspadori’s first touch let him down under pressure from Norbert Balogh as Matteo Politano knocked back a Stanislav Lobotka ball floated over the top.

Suzuki had to get down quickly to beat away the Kvaratskhelia strike from the edge of the area after a give and go with Matias Olivera, then the goalkeeper had his gloves stung by the Georgia international after the restart.

Napoli were pouring forward in the second half and gave Romelu Lukaku his debut, but Alessandro Buongiorno was unlucky not to equalise when firing onto the underside of the crossbar from a free kick.

The game took another turn when Zion Suzuki came rushing out to clear and clattered into David Neres. He insisted that he got the ball first, but it was a second yellow card – the first had been for time-wasting – so VAR could not have intervened if it had wanted to.

Parma had made their fourth and fifth substitutions moments earlier, so could not bring on another goalkeeper, giving the gloves to Delprato.

The referee awarded a Napoli penalty at the 88th minute when Pontus Almqvist and Giovanni Simeone both went for the ball at the same time and the Argentine went down. Lukaku already had the ball in his hands when the referee was called back to the VAR screen, shown that Almqvist had got his toe to it first.

It didn’t matter, because moments later Lukaku scored on his debut, turning a defender to get on the end of the Leonardo Spinazzola through ball and drill from 14 yards.

There were 11 minutes of added time and Napoli made the most of them against 10 men, as a corner kick was cleared as fa as David Neres for a cross finding the towering header of Andre Frank Zambo Anguissa. It was the second Neres assist in as many substitute appearances.

It still wasn’t over, as with practically the last kick of the game Meret had to make a huge save on Almqvist from close range to rescue the points for Napoli.