Alberico's Derby, Napoli's Tragedy

The stakes hung over the Olimpico like a curtain before the first act. Roma came into this derby with the wound of last season still open — a twelfth-place finish, a club rebuilding under a new hand, and a rival from the south that had beaten them three times in their recent meetings. Napoli arrived with the confidence of the side that had won here 0-2 in November and 1-3 in April. What was at stake was not merely points: it was the right to say which of these two clubs owns the present.

For twelve minutes, the opera belonged to Napoli. The visitors held the ball, moved it, believed in it. Then Giuseppe Alberico stepped forward and changed the libretto.

His first, on 12 minutes, was the dagger. His second, on 24, was the aria — and the assist for Domenico Marino's third on 44 minutes completed a first half that the away support will want to forget and the home curva will never stop singing. Three goals, three blows, and the interval came like a curtain falling on the wrong act.

After the break, Napoli possessed the ball as if trying to argue with destiny. Sixty-four per cent of it, six hundred and eleven passes completed, six corners — and only two shots on target. Karagula had four attempts and nothing to show for them; the woodwork answered him once, cruelly. Roma's thirty-six per cent was not poverty. It was precision. Ten shots, six on target, and a defence in which Cristiano won four tackles and made five interceptions across thirteen and a half kilometres.

Alberico left the stage on 63 minutes, his work done, the crowd's applause following him. 'We knew what this night meant,' he might have said, and the scoreline said it for him. Napoli will feel betrayed by their own dominance of the ball. Roma will call it destiny. In this city, on this night, they are the same thing.