Napoli have advanced to the knockout stage of the Europa League with a 3-2 victory against the English club, Leicester City.
The win makes it Napoli’s 6th qualification to the next round of the tournament.
However, the result means Brendan Rodgers’ men have now been demoted to the Europa Conference League.
Before the game began, The Foxes were in pole position to advance. Unfortunately, they paid a huge price for their slack defending as the hosts progressed to be the runners-up in Group C.
Ahead of the European tournaments that will continue in February, the draw takes place on Monday, and they will face one of the third-placed teams from the group stages of the Europa Conference League.
There was a tense conclusion as the Foxes almost had a late reprieve due to events over 1,000 miles away in Poland. There was a stoppage-time penalty awarded to Legia Warsaw in their fixture against Spartak Moscow at virtually the same time as the final whistle blew in Italy. A Legia equaliser would have sent Leicester through, but Tomas Pekhart’s spot-kick was saved by Spartak goalkeeper Aleksandr Selikhov. This made Spartak Moscow finish on top of Group C.
The tone for the five-goal thriller began with Adam Ounas’ early goal. The Algerian registered his first goal since April 2019 due to an error from Caglar Soyuncu.
The hosts also punished The Foxes for another error from Ryan Bertrand. The defender played Andrea Petagna onside and the forward in turn squared the ball for Eljif Elmas to tap home.
In reducing the deficit, the Foxes responded superbly. Jonny Evans drove in in an immediate response after a free-kick was only partially cleared.
Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall then levelled matters with a precise left-foot volley from the edge of the penalty area.
Leicester’s mistake, however, continued as Napoli scored the winner from another defensive lapse. Bertrand, Harvey Barnes, and Timothy Castagne failed to mark tightly enough as Giovanni di Lorenzo picked out Elmas. He allowed the ball to run across his body before driving it into the bottom right corner.
Written by: Oladipupo Mojeed
