Seven Games With Them, Four Without

Seven. That is the number that matters in Naples this morning, and it is a number that should make the whole city tremble: seven matches with Donaldo Meschini and Rubén Montes on the left flank, and from those seven have come four victories, two draws and a single defeat, with 2.6 goals struck a game and 1.6 conceded.

Now listen to the silence that follows. Four matches without one of the pair: no victory at all, one draw, three defeats. Not a single goal scored. An average of 1.5 conceded. The scoreboard has become an empty stage, the curtain never rising.

This is the season so far, and it is a drama in two acts. Meschini, the Brazilian who arrived from Fortaleza Esporte Clube in the summer of 2054 and has since given this club four hundred and six appearances, and Montes, the Spaniard who came from Cádiz four years later, have made the left their own kingdom. When both are there, Napoli sing. When one is missing, the aria breaks off mid-phrase.

"On that side we understand each other without words," Montes has said of the understanding. "He goes, I stay; I go, he stays. It is music."

And it is music this side of Italy has learned to love, even as the season has dealt its blows: the defeats to Juventus and in that bitter Roma night earlier this autumn showed how fragile the harmony can be. But those were nights when the pair were on the field, and still the result turned against them; imagine, then, the nights when one is absent, and the left flank is a corridor with the lights gone out.

The verdict is not in doubt. This is a strong partnership, and the numbers say so plainly: with them, Napoli are a force; without one of them, they are a team searching for a voice. The city waits for the next performance, and prays both men are on the bill.