Juventus player ratings vs Napoli: Costa, Higuain, and Koulibaly save Juve
By John Vaccaro
On Saturday, Juventus and Napoli played a match that will surely go down as one of the most exciting of the year.
It didn’t take long for Juventus to get the excitement started in this match, with Douglas Costa feeding Danilo on a counterattack to open the match’s scoring. Then Juve added a second goal even more quickly, when Gonzalo Higuain shook 3 Napoli defenders and beat Alex Meret to give Juventus a second early goal. The match went to halftime with Juve holding that 2-0 lead, but things would get even more interesting after the break.
Cristiano Ronaldo seemingly put the match out of reach when he turned Douglas Costa’s cross into the back of the net, but somehow, Napoli wasn’t finished. They responded quickly, when Kostas Manolas scored a header from a free kick to give Napoli their first goal of the match.
Much like Juve’s second goal, Napoli’s would quickly follow their first. It took Napoli only 2 minutes to follow up their opener. Matthijs de Ligt lost track of Hirving Lozano, allowing him to slip into the penalty area undefended, making it easy for him to finish when Mario Rui got him the ball in the box. The match settled down a bit over the next 12 minutes, but in the 81st, Matthijs de Ligt slipped, forcing Alex Sandro to commit a foul outside of the box.
Napoli would take advantage of the free kick opportunity again. This time it was Giovanni Di Lorenzo who would make Juventus pay for poor defending on a set piece, with him equalizing the game with his thigh.
The match looked destined to end in a draw when it stoppage time without either team having really created another truly threatening chance, but Juventus would get a miracle late. In the 92nd minute, Kalidou Koulibaly, who is usually one of the world’s most reliable center backs, tried to clear Miralem Pjanic’s free kick but instead turned the ball into the back of his own net. Napoli had no time to recover and try to equalize before the final whistle and Juventus snuck away with a 4-3 win.
GK: Wojciech Szczesny 7.5/10
It might seem weird to give a keeper who allowed 3 goals such a high grade, but this could match could have had a much different ending if it weren’t for Szczesny. He made a phenomenal save to keep Allan from opening the scoring early in the first half and really didn’t have much of a chance to stop any of the 3 goals he let in. He had a dicey moment in the second half when he failed to hold onto the ball after an easy save, but it didn’t end up hurting Juve. Overall, another solid day for Szczesny and one that will keep him ahead of Gianluigi Buffon for the starting spot.