Horncastle: Serie A Week 3 Review - Higuain & Icardi's double delight; Totti rains on Samp's parade
The focus before the game was understandably on Joe Hart. In the hours after Saturday’s Manchester derby, he had received 100s of messages on Instagram from City fans pleading with him to come back following Claudio Bravo’s shaky start. “We’re going to hold onto him,” Mihajlovic insisted. “And if Guardiola has any other players he doesn’t want, I’ll take them…”
Hart had been given a crash course in Italian in his first week in Italy. Homework, according to Mihajlovic, consisted of learning “the 30, 40 or 50 words he’ll need in order to marshall our defence.” On Monday morning, Hart will probably have discovered another new word: papera. The papers blamed Atalanta’s equaliser on his ‘howler’. Hart flapped at a cross and was punished by Andrea Masiello. The England No.1 did get a chance to redeem himself a little later when Atalanta were awarded a penalty, but Franck Kessié, the revelation of the season so far in Serie A, sent Hart the wrong way and condemned Torino to defeat.
For all the enthusiasm generated by Hart’s signing, the like of which hasn’t been seen at Torino since the signing of Enzo Scifo and Martin Vazquez in the early 90s, it was interesting to learn this week that Hart wasn’t even Torino’s first choice. Mihajlovic had sought a reunion with Emiliano Viivano instead but couldn’t get a deal done with Samp. It was Viviano’s agent Claudio Vigorelli who suggested Hart as an alternative.
Cousins Juventus predictably fared much better this weekend. Their headline signings all made a big impact even if Sami Khedira has probably been Juventus' Player of the Season so far. Gonzalo Higuain - dubbed Speedy Gonzalo by Il Corriere della Sera - scored twice in the opening 10 minutes against Sassuolo. El Pipita is averaging a goal every 38 minutes in Bianconero. Fellow new signing Miralem Pjanic also marked his first appearance with a goal to make it 3-0 before half an hour was on the clock and left no one under any illusion whatsoever of this team’s superpower status.
A year ago, Juventus had just a single point after their opening three fixtures. This year they’re on maximum points. Frighteningly, the start to the season was supposed to be uphill for them. Fiorentina, Lazio and Sassuolo are all members of Serie A’s upper middle class. All have been swept aside with relative ease.
WATCH: TOP 5 GOALS OF SERIE A MATCHDAY 3
Orphaned by Higuain this summer, Napoli do not have a problem scoring goals. After putting four past Milan before the international break, they hit another three without reply away in Palermo to remind us that Napoli's graceful style of play was every bit as much the star as their former No.9 was last season. It was a big factor in his success. Napoli knitted 689 passes together at the Favorita. Their opener was a wonderful team goal started and finished by captain Marek Hamsik. It was his 82nd for the Partenopei in Serie A and took him past Diego Maradona in the club record books.
Jose Callejon continued his fine start to the season. Fundamental to the balance of the team, particularly considering how Napoli’s left-hand side of Faouzi Ghoulam, Marek Hamsik and one of Dries Mertens or Lorenzo Insigne is so attacked-minded, Callejon sacrificed himself a lot on the other flank last season. He didn’t score in the league until just before the winter break. This season Callejon already has four to his name already and looks likely to put up the same numbers he did in his first year at the San Paolo when he scored 17 times.
What impressed the most about Napoli on Saturday, however, was how the identity and the result stayed the same despite Sarri ringing the changes. Christian Maggio, Piotr Zielinski and Lorenzo Insigne all came in for Elseid Hysaj, Allan and Dries Mertens and there was no difference. On the contrary, Zielinski, who came on and changed the game against Milan, managed to stand out once again. Napoli’s third goal in Sicily was the fruit of his 70-yard, box-to-box run. Zielinski’s compatriot Arkadiusz Milik didn’t get on the scoresheet this time around. However, his off-the-ball movement did still catch the eye. The Pole is always first to the near post and works hard for the team.
Milik could have had Mauro Icardi for a teammate this season. In the end, he decided to stay at Inter [resolving a contract dispute] and thank goodness he did. Icardi rescued his team in Pescara on Sunday night. The Nerazzurri have gone behind in every game so far this season and this was the first one they have come back to win. Drastic action was required. It necessitated a triple substitution with a quarter of an hour to go, a switch in system to a 4-2-4 and all of Icardi’s predatory instincts to deliver Frank de Boer his first victory in Serie A.
Icardi’s equaliser was a world class effort. Although it owed a lot to the quality of delivery whipped in by Ever Banega, Icardi reminded us all, as he did in Frosinone last season, of his surprising ability in the air. A poacher par excellence, he now has three goals from four shots on target this season. We should also add that Inter’s new €45m signing Joao Mario put on an encouraging display at the Adriatico. But the night belonged to Icardi. The day, on the other hand, was all about Francesco Totti.
Roma were 2-1 down at the Olimpico when a deluge of biblical proportions forced the game to be temporarily suspended. When it re-started, Luciano Spalletti threw on Totti and watched as the amazing happened. Totti picked up where exactly he left off last season as Roma’s knight-in-shining armour.
Recast as a super sub, he averaged a goal every 58 minutes in the second half of the last campaign. Here, he created at least four clear goalscoring chances, chipping Edin Dzeko through for Roma’s equaliser and then dispatching a stoppage time penalty to claim victory for the team before jumping the advertising hoardings to celebrate under the Curva Sud. “Why should I stop if I’m [playing] like this?” Totti asked.
Er Capitano turns 40 later this month. However, Spalletti now believes he can play another five years. “I have never seen him train with this enthusiasm,” he told Sky Italia. As became clear last season, Totti will not play every game, nor will he start all that often. Instead he is prepared to accept a role as the Lupi’s Mr Wolf. If Roma find themselves in a mess and Spalletti needs someone to clear it up, all he has to do is look over to the bench and call on Francesco. This is not a fairytale. It’s better than that. It's straight out of Pulp Fiction.
@JamesHorncastle
