Lavezzi Catapaults Napoli Against Rivals

It seemed like the good ole days on Saturday at the San Paolo when Napoli defeated their big rivals Juventus to take over the top spot in the Serie A standings.   They will at least have a share of that until they see how Inter and Roma fare and Lazio do as well.  It was a given that Napoli were able have an advantage coming into the game as players like Nicola Legrottaglie, Gianluigi Buffon, Mauro Camoranesi, Momo Sissoko, Cristiano Zanetti were not playing due to injury or suspension.

After a fairly uneventful first half, the fireworks went off in the second.  Amauri scored the first goal of the match for La Vecchia Signora in the 61st minute.  He was able to take advantage of a Cristian Poulsen cross to the near post and opened the scoring in the match with a brilliant first-time volley.  Although they started out trailing, the neapolitans were better as a team and they would be able to reap the fruits of their labor.

Three minutes after the Juventus score, Napoli would find a way to equalize courtesy of their two offensive guns.  Ezequiel Lavezzi  would take advantage of a Juventus error and would cross the ball to Slovak international Marek Hamsik for the equalizer.

Lavezzi would once again take advantage of the error prone Juve defense and would take a Dario Knezevic shank and put it in the back of the Juve net for the game winner.

The win propelled Napoli to 16 points, while Juve are in 11th and the fire gets much hotter for coach Claudio Rainieri as they are winless in their last four matches and have lost their last two in that streak.