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Frenkie de Jong celebrates with his Barcelona teammates after scoring against Napoli in their Europa League match at Stadio Diego Armando Maradona on Thursday. (Photo by MB Media/Getty Images)
Barcelona beat Napoli in Europa League, earning much needed victory
A dominating win over Napoli is an important step for Barcelona towards their goal of winning at least one tournament this season. They now await a rival in the Europa League round of 16.
It seems Xavi’s team has played better football in the last month, beginning with a statement victory over Atlético de Madrid in LaLiga. Although they have had tough ties both in the first leg versus Napoli and in the Catalunya Derby, they have dominated possession and in chances created. They had 21 shots against the Italian team which was 35 percent of what they managed in six games in the Champions League.
Barcelona showed last weekend they have offensive power and unlike the first game against Napoli, they can score goals by bulldozing 4-1 over Valencia in LaLiga.
In this game, it only took eight minutes for the Catalans to take the lead. Insigne gave a horrible corner that started a counter-attack that finished with a Jordi Alba goal.
Four minutes later Frankie de Jong netted the second with an outstanding shot outside the box.
Even Piqué got in on the action, scoring the third goal for the Culés. This was his 15th goal in European competition, surpassing his ex-coach Ronald Koeman as the defender with most goals for Barcelona.
With the win in Italy, Barcelona made history as Napoli had Spanish teams’ number. Including qualifiers, only one Spanish team had ever won away at Napoli in European competition. Real Madrid was the only team that managed to win in the San Paolo (now Diego Armando Maradona stadium). It was a 3-1 victory in the 2017 Champions League. The other nine results had been three victories for the home team and six draws.
Napoli gave everything they could to stay alive in the tournament. After a bad tackle by Marc-Andre ter Stegen, the referee gave the Azzurri a penalty, which Lorenzo Insigne netted to close the gap.
Coming into the match, Napoli had advanced in all eight of their previous European knockouts after drawing first leg away. The last one came in the 2013-14 Europe League round of 32 against Swansea City.
Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang scored the fourth goal that ended any hopes of a comeback for Napoli. The goal helped Barcelona beat their seventh different Italian team away from home. Fiorentina, Inter, Juventus, Lazio, Milan and Udinese were the other six. Roma is the only team the Catalans have been unable to beat.
The fourth goal by the Gabon striker also meant that Barcelona became the second team ever to score four goals in Naples. The only other team that managed to do this was Manchester City in 2017.
Not long ago we were saying Barcelona had hit rock bottom. But after a month with important victories, including this one, we can expect the Culés to, at the very least, compete in the two tournaments they are still alive in.
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