Napoli end 2025 with a bang: Super Cup win fires up Azzurri for January | OneFootball

If the morning shows the day, the sunset of this 2025 offers Napoli serene horizons, but not yet free from clouds. The 2-0 victory at the “Zini” against Cremonese, riding the wave of enthusiasm from the Italian Super Cup lifted to the sky against Bologna, is the necessary morphine to soothe the pains of a roller-coaster first part of the season.

The year of truth begins now: a Napoli in “direct confrontations” mode bids farewell to 2025 with the trophy

Napoli goes on (a short) vacation with a trophy in the cabinet and three vital points. Yet, looking at the track record from August to December, the dominant feeling is one of incompleteness. A team capable of everything and its opposite, afflicted by a sort of football schizophrenia that exalts and depresses the fans in a matter of days. The paradox of the Azzurri is in the numbers. This 2025/26 season's Napoli has disguised itself as “Robin Hood”: ruthless with the rich, generous with the poor. The path in direct confrontations is championship-worthy: Inter dominated, Juventus beaten, an away win at the Olimpico against Roma, and a hat-trick against Atalanta. When the bar is raised, the group responds, showing muscle and personality. The problem arises when the tension drops. The defeats against Udinese, Torino, and that league loss to Bologna, later avenged in the Super Cup final, tell of a team struggling to find motivation against the mid-to-lower teams. A manufacturing defect that, in the long run, risks weighing on the standings more than direct confrontations.

But it is when looking beyond the borders that doubts turn into fears. If in Italy Napoli is a certainty, in Europe it appears fragile. The international journey has been bumpy: the “duty” victories against Sporting and Qarabağ are not enough to erase the lapses against the big teams. City and Benfica have exposed defensive limits, but it is the night in Eindhoven that remains the true black hole of the season. That 6-2 defeat by PSV in October is a stain that hasn't washed away, an anaphylactic shock that risked compromising the group's self-esteem. There, Napoli found itself naked; from there, it had to start again.

Now the calendar allows no more excuses. If December was the month of recovery, January will be the month of judgment. Upon resumption, Napoli will face a thrilling obstacle course that will define, once and for all, whether this team can fight for the title or will have to settle for a placement. It starts on January 4th at the Olimpico against Lazio, then the trip to San Siro against Inter (January 11th) and, after Verona, the eternal challenge in Turin against Juventus (January 25th). As if that weren't enough, in between are the do-or-die European nights against Copenhagen and the giant Chelsea. A brutal tour de force. Napoli ends the year with a full belly from the Super Cup, but with the awareness that the best – and the hardest – is yet to come.

Andrea Alati

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