Once again highlighting Napoli’s match vs Juventus, the screenshot shows Insigne lining up to take a long shot. He is able to do this as Mertens, Callejon and Hamsik, who pushes up to the left side from midfield, overload the box leading to space in the midfield enabling Insigne to take the long shot. Having said that, Napoli do not just shoot on sight, they make sure that any shots they take can threaten the goalkeeper. This is highlighted by the fact that Napoli have the best shot on target ratio in the entire league.

3.The Pass and Play

In my opinion, the most defining characteristic of Napoli’s style of play is what I choose to term “the pass and play”. This can be seen several times in the videos below:

As can be seen above, the pass and play involves Napoli moving forward from their own half while Mertens drops deep and receives the ball. He immediately lays it off to a midfielder in support who proceeds to play the ball over the top to one of the wingers who is making a cutting run. This method is extremely effective and has resulted in Napoli being one of the best counter attacking teams in Serie A. This is evidenced by the fact that they rank 1st in through balls per game in Serie A and 5th in counter attacking goals in Serie A.

Conclusion

This piece intends to highlight the play-style employed when attacking by Napoli throughout the season. From the above, it is clear that Napoli favour building attacks down the left-hand side. Furthermore, they approach the opposing goal in two main ways, either through a through ball caused by Mertens pulling defenders out of position, as seen in the popular ‘pass and play’ or by overloading the box leading to a shot opportunity from range. Therefore, this makes the team somewhat unpredictable in the way they approach the match and difficult to defend against causing problems for the opposition managers when deciding how to approach the match vs Napoli.