Napoli suffer as Cagliari Claudio Ranieri strikes again in ‘zona Cesarini’

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In Italy, the final moments of a football match are called zona Cesarini: a reference to Renato Cesarini, a former Juventus midfielder who cemented his reputation for late goals with a 90th-minute winner for the national team against Hungary in 1931. The term has long since fallen into general use, at describe anything from political markets right before a vote is given homework assignments on the deadline.

Maybe it’s time for an update. In Serie A this season, Cagliari’s Claudio Ranieri has been injured. The Sardinians are having a difficult season, sitting second from bottom in the table, but the outlook could be much worse.

Related: European Roundup: Modric stuns Sevilla with Real Madrid’s late winner

Against Frosinone last October, they did something no Serie A team had ever done before: win after conceding three goals in the 71st minute. Cagliari were still 3-2 down in the 90th, but Leonardo Pavoletti struck twice to give them a 4-3 win. Two months later, they recovered from losing position again in extra time to beat Sassuolo 2-1.

All this means that Napoli should have known better than to believe that the job was done as their game in Cagliari ticked the 95 minutes played. The IS Partenopei they were leading 1-0 from Victor Osimhen’s header midway through the second half. Matteo Politano and Giovanni Simeone missed opportunities to extend their advantage late on. With seconds left, Alberto Dossena curled one last hopeful ball towards Napoli’s penalty area from his own half. Juan Jesus misinterpreted the flight and let Zito Luvumbo slide after him. The Cagliari forward let him bounce, control with his chest swiveled then to fire into the corner.

The Unipol Domus stadium erupted when Luvumbo, with a hamstring injury, was booed by his teammates. Every point counts when you’re fighting for relegation and Cagliari have now scored seven goals in second-half injury time. Can we name it Ranieri area? Back in October the manager predicted: “I’m sure we’ll hold our own in Serie A the same way we got here: in the last second of the last game.”

The story continues

If that is the story of Cagliari, this result fits as well as the story of Napoli’s disastrous campaign. After winning Serie A for the first time in 33 years, one of their worst ever title defenses has followed. Ninth in the table, they trail the league leaders, Inter, by 29 points.

They are on to their third manager of the season. Francesco Calzona officially took the reins last Monday, although his first training session was a day later – less than 36 hours before Napoli host Barcelona in the last 16 of the Champions League. In the circumstances, a 1-1 draw in that fixture could be framed as a good result. It was harder to find positives in these dropped points against Cagliari. “The problem is just a mental problem,” Calzona said. “We have to stay in the game, move on each other more. We’re looking more like a team now, but we’re just taking it step by step.”

How did we get here? Napoli not only won Serie A last season but completely dominated it, finishing 16 points clear in first place with more goals scored and fewer conceded than anyone else in the division. There were small hints late in the season that some of the magic was fading. Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, the eventual Serie A MVP award winner, has not scored since March. Napoli dropped just seven points from their first 24 league games but lost or drew half of the remaining 14.

We now know that the relationship between Napoli’s manager and owner was deteriorating. Luciano Spalletti learned by email that Aurelio De Laurentiis had been selected to extend his contract by one year. Was this the cause of a breakdown, or a symptom? Depending on your take on his story, Spalletti was either abusive or simply looking for an excuse to justify a decision he had already made to leave at the end of the campaign.

De Laurentiis has since insisted that triggering the option was a formality, intended as a first step before renegotiations to reward the manager with better terms. Spalletti paints a more complicated picture of his former employer, telling La Gazzetta dello Sport: “There are four or five [versions of De Laurentiis] and I am not referring to his sons … The grateful person, the melancholy, the fake man, the one who acts behind the scenes.”

The owner admitted mistakes in the next thing. Rudi Garcia was appointed manager but fired in November with Napoli fourth in the table. De Laurentiis later said he regretted not taking this decision straight away after hearing the Frenchman admit in his opening press conference that he had not watched any of the title-winning run. But that statement begged the question: what did they talk about at the interview?

Walter Mazzarri was next. De Laurentiis had hoped his familiarity with the club, which he twice guided to Champions League qualification in four seasons at the start of the 2010s, would make him the perfect ferryman to find calmer waters and get through the rest of the season. this. Instead, Mazzarri’s Napoli scored nine Serie A goals in 12 games – the fewest of any team in the league during his tenure.

AC Milan 1-1 Atalanta, Lecce 0-4 Inter, Cagliari 1-1 Napoli, Juventus 3-2 Frosinone, Genoa 2-0 Udinese, Salernitana 0-2 Monza, Sassuolo 2-3 Empoli, Bologna 2-0 Verona.

Monday Roma v Torino, Fiorentina v Lazio.

Circumstances Hurt him. Osimhen, the head of the department Capocanniere last season, he was barely available during Mazzarri’s tenure – recovering from a hamstring injury in time for a handful of appearances before departing for the Africa Cup of Nations. Despite an exhausted return, he has scored in both games under Calzona so far.

But this same squad dealt with absences for Osimhen early last season, when Simeone and Giacomo Raspadori stepped up to fill the void. Neither the attack nor the supporting midfield lost any key pieces in the summer, with goalkeeper Kim Min-jae the only starter to depart when Bayern Munich triggered his release clause€ 58 m. And if this group needed better coverage, wouldn’t De Laurentiis be responsible for that too? He described the sporting director’s role as “non-central” after Cristiano Giuntoli, widely credited with the signing of Kvaratskhelia, left to join Juventus in the summer.

Squad planning has since felt very chaotic, with no adequate replacement found for Kim and Napoli scrambling next January to find cover for Osimhen and Piotr Zielinski, who were omitted from Napoli’s Champions League-winning squad – despite starting regularly in Serie A – as he hopes to join Inter when his contract expires in the summer.

At a press conference earlier this month, De Laurentiis offered an initial defense of his record as club president, noting that Napoli closed 2023 with a profit of almost €80m. He pointed out that his family’s ownership of Bari, who finished third in Serie B last season, was another net advantage for Napoli, allowing us to develop more players, and talked about the upcoming film early in his media. the company, Filmauro, produced last year’s Scudetto victory.

None of this will help supporters feel better about seeing their team in mid-table. “In the situation we’re in, we just have to think one game at a time,” Calzona said when asked what his team can still aim for this season. “It’s no use talking about projects at the moment … but until mathematics condemns us we must aspire to the highest objectives.”

The gap to fifth place – which could hold a place in the Champions League – is nine points, and Napoli still have 13 games left. A lot can happen in this zona Cesarinias this weekend’s opponents can attest.