Barcelona vs Napoli
The Spanish Giant seem to have kicked off their UEFA Europa league campaign on a light note after a 1-1 draw against Italian side Napoli. You would remember that the Spanish side had been kicked out of the UEFA Champions league after a disappointing form leading to poor results.
The emergence of Club Legend Xavi as the new head coach seem to have turned things abit in the favour of Barcelona. Also, the loss of Leo Messi was a big blow for the team as the philosophy of the team had been focused on the talent of the Argentine player. Messi's departure to PSG created a vacuum that was took big to be filled in a very short while. But Barcelona has been very active in the transfer market with the signing of Ferran Torres,Adama Traore and Pierre Emerick Aubameyang, these players are quite talented and offers a morale boast for the team.
The Europa tie against Napoli was never going to be an easy encounter but the Spanish Giant made their first appearance to the competition in nearly 18 years, the expectation would be an absolute domination of the game but this expectation was taken away by a beautiful goal scored by the Polish International Piotr Zielinski in the 29' min forcing Barcelona to intensify efforts to draw level before halftime,all efforts to score were wasted and it ended 1-0 in favour of Napoli at halftime.
The second half was underway as Barcelona wrestled to get an equaliser, the equaliser came through a VAR decision for a penalty caused by handball,the former man City sensational player Ferran Torres scored from spotkick making it his first European goal for Football Club Barcelona.
Barcelona continued to pressure Napoli having a possession of 67% as opposed to 33% by Napoli. It would interest you to know that the Spanish side had a total of 21 shots registering only 5 on target, this statistic shows that the chances created were not properly utilised and for a team of that quality and prestige we expected better.
Napoli on the other hand seemed to have forgotten their beautiful attacking style of football,they were forced to play a defensive style of football which they are not particularly good at. The low possession and just 4 shots on target would suggest that they had no plan of launching attacks in the game.
Barcelona would be hoping to build an amazing form from this result while Napoli would be hoping to defeat Barcelona when they visit them for the second leg encounter in Italy.
Other Europa Results
In other news, Dortmund lost shamefully to the Scottish side Rangers 2-4, while Sevilla easily won against Dinamo Zagreb 3-1, it was also a win for Porto against Lazio in a very heated match which ended 2-1 while Atalanta were victorious at home against Olympiacos. Braga were trashed by Sheriff 2-0, RB Leipzig were held to a 2-2 draw by Real Sociedad and finally Real Betis beat the Russian side Zenit 3-2.
More actions and dramas are expected to unfold as the next legs of the competition takes place.