Napoli 2–2 AC Milan: A Tactical Analysis
Sunday’s 2–2 draw between Napoli and AC Milan marked a battle between two wounded giants. Milan were fresh off an unfortunate loss to Juventus in the Serie A and a humbling midweek defeat against Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League. Napoli, meanwhile, has been far from their title-winning form from last season, dropping crucial points to mid-table teams such as Genoa and Bologna. Wins by Juventus and Inter earlier in the weekend added pressure for both teams to stay with the pack.
Milan and Napoli lined up almost identically as they did in their midweek matchups. The only changes being Elmas starting over Cajuste for Napoli and Calabria filling in for Thiaw, who picked up a suspension last weekend.
Injuries added further constraints on both ends. Before Sunday’s game, Napoli had already gone two matches without last year’s capocannoniere, Victor Osimhen, who is recovering from a hamstring injury, while AC Milan were without their two new signings, Samuel Chukwueze and Ruben Loftus-Cheek, as well as Ismael Bennacer, who has not featured in a single game this season.
Victor Osimhen’s absence was acutely felt by the Neapolitan side. The first figure shows how the team avoided playing crosses into the box for Raspadori. But perhaps more noteworthy is the fact that — as both the first and second figure show — Napoli had greater success at reaching the byline through Politano on the right side of the pitch compared to the left side, where Kvaratskhelia plays.
The second figure shows a higher expected threat for Napoli when they are able to penetrate the area between Milan’s goal and the right edge of Milan’s box. Meanwhile, the first figure shows a lack of penetrating passes played on the left and an abundance of backwards passing. Combined play may be more prevalent on the right side due to Kvaratskhelia’s ability to take on opponents with greater frequency on the left. Although he represents one of Napoli’s more high-profile threats, Kvaratskhelia was only able to complete 43% of his dribbles against AC Milan. Politano completed 60% of his. This could be due to multiple factors, including AC Milan’s defensive concentration on that left side and Di Lorenzo’s contribution to overloading the right side.
At the other end, AC Milan took full advantage of Olivier Giroud’s aerial threat. Unlike Napoli, AC Milan is able to offer unpredictable combinations that would make it harder for the opposing team to defend. Pioli’s side doesn’t fall into the same pattern as Napoli despite similarly boasting a dribbling left winger in Rafael Leão. Milan’s wingers, wingbacks and mezzalaesque midfielders (Yunus Musah and Tijani Reijnders) give the team depth and versatility, meaning they depend much less on dribbles and utilize combinations of plays and crosses to create threat in the opposition’s half. AC Milan recorded nearly double the amount of key passes in the final third compared to Napoli, while attempting less dribbles.
The third figure reflects AC Milan’s ability to increase expected threat before and around the box, not only in one area, but in multiple.
The fourth figure shows the distribution of passes going into the final third for AC Milan.
There are two interesting takeaways from the figure above. The first is that we see fairly distributed play through both flanks. Although there is slightly more going through Raphael Leão’s side, it’s fairly even compared to Napoli’s passes into the final third. The second takeaway is that there are many small combination passes between defenders, midfielders and the wingers, but when there are attempts to play longer passes they repeatedly fail. It seems that AC Milan depend on short passes to build up play into the final third, but once in the final third, they are able to find their target players with crosses into the box.
Here we see successful and attempted crosses into the opposition’s box. Not only are they successful in finding their target, but they are able to do this from any position outside of the box, overburdening Napoli’s defense.
Despite the draw, it seems Milan played a much more versatile game. The data confirms what may have been noticeable in plain sight: despite boasting world class wingers, both teams rely on target men to add dimensionality to their threats. Without Osimhen, Napoli were almost exclusively dependent on runs from Politano and Kvaratskhelia. But the fact that they were able to salvage a draw despite the circumstances is perhaps a reminder of what the team has been able to accomplish with a full and healthy squad.
These visualizations were compiled using data from whoscored.com
Thank you to Ben Griffis for providing this wonderful visualization package that can be found on his GitHub account (Follow him on X: @BeGriffis)
