Leader Napoli suffered a second defeat of the season, a harsh defeat at the hands of its guest, Atalanta, 0-3, with a brace by Nigerian Ademola Lookman on Sunday in the eleventh round of the Italian Football League.
Napoli, led by its new coach Antonio Conte, entered the match on the back of five consecutive victories and one defeat, which it suffered in the opening stage against Verona (0-3) away from home. Which put him at the top of the standings, 4 points behind Inter, the defending champion.
As a result of his absence from continental participation due to his disappointing ranking last season, Napoli seemed to be one of the most prominent candidates to compete for the title, but Atalanta shook his confidence when he dropped Diego Armando Maradona in his stronghold, achieving his fifth victory in a row. Which put him at the heart of the struggle for the lead after raising his score to 22 points in second place temporarily, awaiting Inter’s match with its guest Venezia later.
The loss comes to Atalanta, which also humiliated the southern team 3-0 in the same stadium during their last meeting, before Conte’s visit to the stadium of his former team Inter next Sunday, then hosting Roma in the next stage.
As for Atalanta, it is preparing well for its difficult trip to Germany, where it faces Wednesday with Stuttgart, the runner-up of the “Bundesliga” champion, in its fourth test in the unified group of the Champions League competition in its new format (collecting 5 points from its first three matches).
Coach Jean Piero Gasperini’s team effectively decided the match in the first half, when they finished ahead with two goals from Lookman.
The first came in the tenth minute when the ball reached him from Belgian Charles de Ketelaar after a cross by Matteo Ruggeri was intercepted by Uruguayan Matias Oliveira, and the Nigerian shot it into the net “on the fly” from a difficult angle.
After an opportunity for Napoli from the Scottish newcomer, Scott McTominay, who fired a rocket ball from the outskirts of the area that bounced off the post (12), Lookman struck again and increased the visitors’ lead with a second goal following an individual effort by Dee Kitlar, who manipulated two defenders on the right side before passing the ball to the Nigerian, and the latter got rid of it. From Giovanni Di Lorenzo, then he fired it powerfully into the net (32), scoring his sixth goal in the league for this season.
Atalanta thought they had added the third goal through Sead Kolasinac at the beginning of the second half, but the referee canceled it due to offside and a foul on the Bosnian defender (57).
Despite the attempts and control that Atalanta tried to exploit through counterattacks, and Conte’s decision to remove the Belgian Romelu Lukaku and the Georgian Khvicha Kavartskhelia in favor of the Argentine Giovanni Simeone and the Brazilian David Nerich, respectively; The score remained the same until stoppage time, when substitute Matteo Retegui increased his lead in the scorers’ standings with his tenth goal of the season and the third for the visitors in the match after a pass from the other substitute, Raul Bellanova (2+90).
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