📉 Napoli flop, 1-1 at Parma! McTominay record, Buongiorno handball? 📸 | OneFootball

Napoli severely complicate their bid to challenge Inter for the Scudetto after being held to a 1-1 draw by Parma at the Ennio Tardini stadium.

Scott McTominay spared defeat by equalising in the second half after Strefezza’s opener after just 33 seconds, but the Azzurri remain on 66 points. By beating Como, Inter can move nine points clear and virtually wrap it up.

🔴 Article constantly being updated: click the match card above for the live text commentary.

In the 79th minute, Parma appealed for a penalty for handball by Buongiorno, who was struck by Spinazzola’s clearance from close range. Furious protests from the Ducali, but neither referee Di Bello nor VAR intervened.

Here is Marelli’s explanation: "The ball struck Buongiorno’s arm, which was in a natural position, from very close range. Both that and the naturalness of the movement were considered as reasons not to award a penalty."

🧨 DEADLY McTominay, 12th goal and Napoli make it 1-1

In the 60th minute, with their first clean shot on target, Napoli made it 1-1 through Scott McTominay, who scored his 12th goal of the season. The Napoli midfielder is now one short of the personal record he set last year.

It was a textbook Conte-team move. Lobotka played a vertical pass to Hojlund, who laid it off for the Scot, and he was clinical with a diagonal finish that nestled into the far bottom corner.

😲 Parma ahead with 0.06 xG

Parma ended the first half with 0.06 expected goals and yet were leading.

The huge credit to the Ducali, after the immediate opener, was in clogging up every passing lane and every Napoli effort, with Suzuki never really troubled.

🤯 Milinkovic, what are you doing? Goalkeeper rushes out wildly

In the 41st minute, Milinkovic-Savic charged out on a rather improbable run far off his line to stop a Parma counterattack.

Delprato was played wide on the right, Napoli had 2-v-2 cover, but the goalkeeper decided to rush the ball 40 metres from his goal and put it out for a throw-in.

😬 Napoli pushing, Parma WALL

Napoli did not create many clear-cut chances in the first half of the opening period, but they attacked with lots of men forward and kept running into a Parma side sitting understandably deep to protect their lead.

⚡️ Lightning Parma goal, Strefezza makes it 1-0 after 33''

After just 33 seconds, Napoli immediately went behind against Parma through Gabriel Strefezza, who scored his first goal since arriving in Emilia. It was not the Ducali’s fastest goal of the season, because Bernabé had scored after 13 seconds in the derby against Bologna.

Long kick from Suzuki, both Buongiorno and Juan Jesus challenged Elphege, who beat them both to it and set up the Italo-Brazilian. The diagonal finish was perfect, kissing the post on its way in and leaving Milinkovic-Savic with no chance.

🔙 KDB: "I feel good, we have to hope Inter slip up"

Kevin De Bruyne also spoke before the match: "I feel good at the moment, I’ve had other injuries and I’ve always come back. It’s never easy to return, but I feel good. [...] We have to hope Inter make some mistakes and that we keep winning".

💪 "We’re watching Inter, but the goal is the Champions League"

Before kick-off, Antonio Conte spoke to DAZN about the Scudetto race: "We have a goal to achieve, which is qualification for the Champions League. We are in second place, so it’s inevitable to also look at the team ahead of us, knowing that those in front depend only on themselves."

"Today is one of the seven matches left, whatever the result, the same can be said next week. We have always found Parma difficult when I’ve been on the bench, and if I look at the stats I see the difficulties we’ve had scoring against this team. A very difficult test awaits us today."

✅ The OFFICIAL line-ups

PARMA (3-5-2): Suzuki; Circati, Troilo, Valenti; Delprato, Bernabé, Keita, Nicolussi Caviglia, Valeri; Elphege, Strefezza.

NAPOLI (3-4-2-1): Milinkovic-Savic; Juan Jesus, Buongiorno, Olivera; Politano, Lobotka, Anguissa, Spinazzola; De Bruyne, McTominay; Hojlund.

Parma are without Pellegrino (suspension), Frigan and Cremaschi. Napoli have Di Lorenzo, Neres, Vergara, Rrahmani and Lukaku out injured.

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

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