What a strange team Roma can be. Rudi Garcia’s contrarians seem determined to confound expectations on a weekly basis; when clear favourites they contrive to lose, when underdogs they have a tendency to overachieve. They continued down this unpredictable path on Sunday evening by stubbornly holding on to a valuable point away to Napoli, their fellow Scudetto contenders, in a raucous San Paolo.

Prior to the game, Napoli were considered heavy favourites. Roma had sneaked through to the Champions League knockout stages in embarrassing circumstances after drawing 0-0 at home to BATE Borisov, a result which followed a three-match winless run in Serie A and a 6-1 drubbing at the majestic feet of Barcelona. The fans were angry; the coach was under fire. But while Roma’s winless streak was extended in Naples, they played with a spirit and defensive resolve that has only been witnessed on the rarest of occasions this season.

Some would call the Giallorossi’s performance negative, indeed this was Maurizio Sarri’s belief when afterwards he told reporters that “we were the only team playing football.” Others might define Roma’s display as realistic. Juventus, Inter and Fiorentina had all been vanquished by Napoli’s fluid forward play and Roma needed a specific tactical setup to prevent themselves being blown away by the movement, speed and precision of Gonzalo Higuain, Lorenzo Insigne and Marek Hamsik.

To stymie the home side, Roma chose not to close them down high up the pitch, instead allowing Napoli’s defensive ball-players to pass it amongst each other around the halfway line without undergoing real pressure. One aspect of the Partenopei’s build-up play is their ability to draw the opponent out with interchanges between Kalidou Koulibaly, Raul Albiol and defensive midfield pivot, Jorginho. However, with Roma’s forward line standing off, Napoli’s centre-backs were often forced to bring the ball out from the back themselves, creating a possibility for quick counter-attacks in behind them. Furthermore, as a result of their attacking players not being drawn out of position, Roma were able to retain their defensive shape, restricting space for Napoli to play through.

Along with this defensive structure, Garcia tasked Miralem Pjanic with the specific duty of sitting on Jorginho to disrupt Napoli’s passing rhythm. The former Verona man is responsible for setting the tempo of his team’s play with his accurate passing but, with Pjanic constantly following him, he had little time or space in which to construct attacking moves.

Pjanic is renowned for his intricate playmaking qualities and set piece precision, but it was his defensive work ethic that shone through on Sunday. Garcia no doubt gained his inspiration for this idea from watching Amadou Diawara perform the same man-marking job on Jorginho for Bologna as Roberto Donadoni’s men surprisingly defeated Napoli 3-2 the previous weekend.

As hard as Roma worked to nix Napoli’s passing at an early stage, they were inevitably penetrated on occasion. Hamsik is the most attacking of Napoli’s midfield trident and with his forward runs the Slovakian was at times able to breach Roma’s midfield line. However, having broken that line he was often confronted by a compact Roma defence, with Kostas Manolas and Antonio Rudiger ensuring Higuain was kept quiet for most of the match.

While Roma’s defensive fortitude was admirable, their attacking play was not. Daniele De Rossi often dropped deep between Manolas and Rudiger to help set up Roma’s passing game from the back and to enable full-backs Alessandro Florenzi and Lucas Digne to push high up the flanks, however this sometimes led to space for Napoli to attack on each wing.

Roma’s defensive 4-5-1 system and reactive play often meant that, upon recovering possession, they could only resort to hopeful long balls for Edin Dzeko to chase, win or hold up. The gangly target man was unable to do much with such poor service, however, often finding himself outnumbered and manhandled by the aggressive defending of Koulibaly and Albiol. As a result of such disjointed attacking play, Roma didn’t have a single shot on target throughout the entire game. They did put the ball in the net thanks to a De Rossi header, but that was ruled out as Rudiger’s cross had gone out before curling back into play.

In the end the result matters a lot more to Garcia and Roma than the aesthetics. Quite reasonably, they were more than happy to sacrifice noble stylistic ideals in favour of points at a time when their own fans have begun to turn on them. Having kept them within reach of second place, this point may prove particularly important.

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