Atalanta v Napoli, Getty Images January 18, 2025, 11:39 p.m

Saturday’s part of the twenty-first round of the Italian Serie A really turned out to be one that was worth paying attention to in the evening. First we saw a decent match in Turin between Juventus and Milan, after which the teams, perhaps less famous in terms of their names, but more successful in the national championship in the current campaign, went into battle.

And, probably, in the context of the duel between Atalanta from Bergamo and Napoli from Naples at the top of the tournament table, we still had the opportunity to talk about the primordial confrontation between the north and the south of Italy, respectively. And the game itself turned out to be quite heated in the end, so there was clearly no room for any concessions from either side.

What is characteristic, both teams seem to have been caught up in waves of mood. Initially, the attacking style was exclusively practiced by the “Goddess”, in the end, opening the score with the efforts of Retegi and his powerful shot from the left wing of the free-kick at the 16th minute in the near nine, while Napoli at this time exclusively defended. And then the teams switched roles, and Antonio Conte’s wards were already attacking.

Surprisingly, defending in the team of Gian Piero Gasperini turned out to be much worse, so with the powerful shots of Politano and McTominay under the crossbar from a close distance within the limits of other people’s possession, Napoli not only played back the deficit, but also took the lead. And if you take the time course of the first half in general, then it became a frank surprise.

The highlight of this game day in Italy, by all accounts, was a strong start to the second half. Juventus defeated Milan in this way, and Atalanta tried to repeat the same in our meeting and also succeeded. Meret was showered with moments of possession and Luqman ended up embarrassing a whole bunch of defenders on the left flank in his path as he went for a well-timed shot into the far corner.

A draw – there was something about it. It was difficult to determine a clear favorite of the pair by the course of the game, so at the end it seemed that yes, they could part with a peaceful result. But it turned out that Conte’s team had other plans for this. In the 79th minute, Lukaku was given the opportunity to touch the ball in the danger zone for the first time in the whole match, and he immediately turned Angiss’s pass from the left wing into a productive header that brought victory to his team. The owners could not recover from this.

Bergamo’s Atalanta visit Como in the next round, while they host Sturm of Austria in the UEFA Champions League in midweek, while Napoli host Juventus at home.

Atalanta — Napoli 2:3
Goals: Reteghi, 16, Lukman, 55 — Politano, 27, McTominay, 40, Lukaku, 79

Atalanta: Carnesecchi — Scalvini (Brescianini, 83), Guin, Jimcity — Bellanova, de Ron, Ederson, Ruggeri (Zappacosta, 68) — Samardzic (Pashalic, 77), Lukman (Zaniolo, 77) — Reteghi (De Ketelare, 67).

Naples: Meret – Di Lorenzo, Rahmani, Jesus, Olivera – Zambo-Angissa, Lobotka, McTominay – Politano (Mazzocchi, 82), Lukaku (Simeone, 84), Neres (Spinazzola, 74).

Warnings: Jimcity, Ruggeri, Scalvini, Guin – Neres, McTominay