At least Lorenzo Insigne will not need to be taught another lesson by his children. He had barely made it back to his car after Napoli’s win over Torino in October when his sons, eight-year-old Carmine and six-year-old Christian, warned him that they would be getting the football out and showing him how to strike a penalty as soon as they got home.
Maybe they had some good pointers. The tame effort saved by Vanja Milinkovic-Savic in that match was Insigne’s third missed spot-kick of the season. Since then, he has converted four out of four. After Inter’s Stefan De Vrij kicked the heel of Victor Osimhen on Saturday, Insigne swept a confident penalty past Samir Handanovic – striking the ball with too much force for the keeper to reach despite diving the right way.
The goal took Lorenzo Insigne past Diego Maradona on Napoli’s all-time scoring list, a landmark that somehow felt less vivid than when he had drawn level three weeks before. Back then, after scoring against Salernitana, he had run to the TV cameras and tried to deliver a message to his club’s supporters. His words were hard to make out clearly, but various lip-readers had him telling the club’s fans “I will always be here.”
Not in a literal sense, obviously. Insigne’s decision to sign for Toronto FC had already been made public. Insigne’s presumed intention was simply to remind his club’s supporters of his attachment to the team that he plays for and the city where he was born and raised.
On the surface, Insigne’s story has parallels with that of Francesco Totti at Roma – a homegrown and lavishly talented forward who grew up to wear the captain’s armband, shattering records and each developing their own signature move. Where Totti had his ‘cucchiao’ chip, Insigne has ‘o tir a gir’, his trademark curling shot around the keeper after cutting in from the left flank.
Yet the relationship between player and fanbase has always been different, with a certain coolness that did not exist for Totti in Rome. Insigne reflected on that reality in an interview with the magazine Rivista Undici, published at the end of last year.
“Do you want to know what Naples has not understood about me?” he said. “I have a particular character. I know how to joke about with anyone, but at the start I keep my distance. For some fans that comes across as arrogance … It’s just a self-defence. Some people have not 100% understood me. Those who truly know me, know how I am made.”
None of which is to suggest a lack of affection for his city. Insigne spoke in the same interview about anti-southern prejudice that exists in Italy and how much it hurts him to hear discriminatory chants from rival fans. His interviewer introduced further layers into the discourse, observing dualities within Neapolitan culture that would make it hard for any player to be loved as unanimously as Totti is by Roma supporters.
📌 Gol numero 1️⃣1️⃣6️⃣ in azzurro per @Lor_Insigne! 💪
— Official SSC Napoli (@sscnapoli) February 13, 2022
💙 #ForzaNapoliSempre pic.twitter.com/ItOCncSlBr
A bigger discussion than we have room for here, but perhaps helpful in understanding why the response to Insigne’s departure has tended more towards resigned disappointment than soul-searching or profound regret. Fans are less interested in his future than their club’s present. The Ultras who waited outside the team’s hotel before the game against Inter had a singular message for Insigne and his vice-captain, Kalidou Koulibaly: “Listen, we need to win”.
Napoli had been presented with a chance to go top of the table, the gap to league leaders Inter down to a single point after their defeat in the Milan derby. It was an opportunity that the Partenopei looked ready to seize when Insigne buried his penalty past Handanovic in the seventh minute.
Through the first half, Napoli were dominant. Victor Osimhen, making only his second start since fracturing his cheekbone and eye socket in a game against Inter last November, seemed to be constantly in motion, not so much dragging Inter’s defenders out of position as never letting them find their shape to begin with. Piotr Zielinski chased Marcelo Brozovic into constant retreat and fired a left-footed effort against the post.
But an equaliser at the start of the second half transformed the game. Edin Dzeko got his initial connection with Lautaro Martínez’s cross all wrong, heading the ball straight down into the floor. The bounce caught Gaetano Di Lorenzo off-guard, and the defender shinned it straight back to him. Dzeko did not need a third invitation, crashing his shot in off the bar.
Napoli would have the best chances to win the game, Handanovic denying Osimhen and Eljif Elmas at his near post, but never recaptured their first-half verve. Inter were content to preserve the draw, though Dzeko remained a threat when Denzel Dumfries or Ivan Perisic found space down the flanks to counter.
The game finished 1-1, and a day later Milan beat Sampdoria 1-0 to jump ahead of both teams into first place. Inter, with a game in hand, retain control of their own destiny, but they have taken just five points from their last four games.
That is mostly a reflection of their taxing winter schedule – which included a visit to Atalanta as well as the fixtures against Milan and Napoli. But the form of Lautaro Martínez, with one goal in his last nine matches, is also becoming a concern.
It was Napoli, though, who left with greater regrets on Saturday, having missed their chance to land a blow on a title rival. Opportunities to compete for the Scudetto do not come along so often in Naples, as Insigne well knows. Reflecting on the various managers he has worked under, he described the three years with Maurizio Sarri as pure joy but confessed that the regret of not winning a league title continued to linger.
It was Koulibaly who spoke for the team at full-time, telling Dazn that: “Lorenzo is the symbol of Napoli and we must respect him. I want such good things for him. We still have a beautiful journey to go on together, chasing our dream.”
Koulibaly’s presence offered a reason to believe. This was his first start since returning from the Africa Cup of Nations. At times he looked a little sluggish, but a brilliant recovering challenge on Dumfries reminded how decisive he can be.
Napoli have enough talent to believe that they can compete for the Scudetto yet, as well as going toe to toe with Barcelona when the Europa League resumes on Thursday. Insigne, the first Italian ever to score at both the Camp Nou and the Santiago Bernabéu in the Champions League, can hardly be intimidated by the stage.
Perhaps now would be a good time, though, for an extra session with Carmine and Christian. Napoli’s departing forward has scored four penalties since the dressing down that his sons gave him at the end of the Torino game. But he has only found the net once all season from open play.
Lazio 3-0 Bologna, Napoli 1-1 Inter, Torino 1-2 Venezia, AC Milan 1-0 Sampdoria, Empoli 1-1 Cagliari, Genoa 1-1 Salernitana, Hellas Verona 4-0 Udinese, Sassuolo 2-2 Roma, Atalanta 1-1 Juventus
| Pos | Team | P | GD | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | AC Milan | 25 | 24 | 55 |
| 2 | Inter Milan | 24 | 35 | 54 |
| 3 | Napoli | 25 | 29 | 53 |
| 4 | Juventus | 25 | 15 | 46 |
| 5 | Atalanta | 24 | 17 | 44 |
| 6 | Lazio | 25 | 13 | 42 |
| 7 | Roma | 25 | 10 | 40 |
| 8 | Fiorentina | 23 | 8 | 36 |
| 9 | Verona | 25 | 7 | 36 |
| 10 | Torino | 24 | 6 | 32 |
| 11 | Empoli | 25 | -10 | 31 |
| 12 | Sassuolo | 25 | -3 | 30 |
| 13 | Bologna | 24 | -11 | 28 |
| 14 | Udinese | 24 | -7 | 27 |
| 15 | Spezia | 24 | -18 | 26 |
| 16 | Sampdoria | 25 | -9 | 23 |
| 17 | Venezia | 24 | -21 | 21 |
| 18 | Cagliari | 25 | -21 | 21 |
| 19 | Genoa | 25 | -25 | 15 |
| 20 | Salernitana | 24 | -39 | 12 |
