In Italy, the final moments of a football game are known as the zona Cesarini: a reference to Renato Cesarini, the former Juventus midfielder who cemented his reputation for late goals with a 90th-minute winner for the national team against Hungary in 1931. The term has long since passed into general use, describing anything from political deals brokered right before a vote to homework assignments handed in on deadline.
Perhaps it is time for an update. In Serie A this season, injury time belongs to Claudio Ranieri’s Cagliari. The Sardinians have endured a difficult season, sitting joint-second from bottom in the table, but the outlook could be a lot worse.
Against Frosinone last October, they did something no Serie A team had ever done before: winning after trailing by three goals in the 71st minute. Cagliari were still 3-2 down in the 90th, but Leonardo Pavoletti struck twice to give them a 4-3 win. Two months later, they recovered from a losing position again in time added on to beat Sassuolo 2-1.
All of this is to say that Napoli should have known better than to believe the job was finished as their match at Cagliari ticked past 95 minutes played. The Partenopei were leading 1-0 from a Victor Osimhen header midway through the second half. Both Matteo Politano and Giovanni Simeone had missed opportunities to extend their advantage late on. With seconds remaining, Alberto Dossena lumped one last hopeful ball toward the Napoli penalty area from his own half. Juan Jesus misread the flight and allowed Zito Luvumbo to slip behind. The Cagliari forward let it bounce, controlled with his chest then swivelled to fire into the corner.
The Unipol Domus stadium erupted as Luvumbo, clutching a hamstring, was smothered by teammates. Every point matters when you’re fighting relegation and Cagliari have now earned seven from goals in second-half injury time. Can we call it the zona Ranieri? Back in October the manager predicted: “I’m sure we’ll keep ourselves in Serie A the same way we got here: in the last second of the last game.”
If that is Cagliari’s narrative, this result fit equally well with the story of Napoli’s catastrophic campaign. After winning Serie A for the first time in 33 years, they have followed up with one of the worst title defences of all time. Ninth in the table, they trail the league leaders, Internazionale, by 29 points.
They are on to their third manager of the season. Francesco Calzona officially took the reins last Monday, though his first training session was another day later – less than 36 hours before Napoli hosted Barcelona in the last-16 of the Champions League. In the circumstances, their 1-1 draw in that fixture could be framed as a good result. It was harder to find positives in these dropped points against Cagliari. “The problem is purely a mental one,” said Calzona. “We need to stay in the game, move for each other more. We’ve started to look more like a team, but we only do it in phases.”
How did we get here? Napoli did not just win Serie A last season but dominated it completely, finishing 16 points clear in first place with more goals scored and fewer conceded than anyone else in the division. There were small clues late in the season that some part of the magic was fading. Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, the eventual winner of Serie A’s MVP award, did not score from March onwards. Napoli only dropped seven points from their first 24 league games but lost or drew half of the remaining 14.
We know now that the relationship between Napoli’s manager and owner was deteriorating. Luciano Spalletti learned via email that Aurelio De Laurentiis had chosen to trigger a one-year extension to his contract. Was this the cause of a breakdown, or a symptom? Depending on whose story you believe, Spalletti was either insulted or simply looking for an excuse to justify a decision he had already made to leave at the end of the campaign.
De Laurentiis has since insisted that triggering the option was a formality, intended as a first step before renegotiating to reward the manager with better terms. Spalletti paints a more complicated picture of his former employer, telling La Gazzetta dello Sport: “There are four or five [versions of De Laurentiis] and I’m not referring to his sons … There’s the grateful one, the melancholy one, the rancorous one, the one who acts behind the scenes.”
The owner has acknowledged mistakes in what came next. Rudi Garcia was appointed as manager but fired in November with Napoli fourth in the table. De Laurentiis later said that he regretted not having taken this decision immediately after hearing the Frenchman confess in his introductory press conference to not watching any of the title-winning run. Yet that statement begged the question: what had they spoken about at the interview?
Walter Mazzarri was next. De Laurentiis hoped his familiarity with the club, which he twice steered to Champions League qualification in four seasons at the start of the 2010s, would make him the perfect ferryman to find calmer waters and navigate through the rest of this season. Instead Mazzarri’s Napoli scored nine Serie A goals in 12 games – the fewest of any team in the league during his tenure.
AC Milan 1-1 Atalanta, Lecce 0-4 Inter, Cagliari 1-1 Napoli, Juventus 3-2 Frosinone, Genoa 2-0 Udinese, Salernitana 0-2 Monza, Sassuolo 2-3 Empoli, Bologna 2-0 Verona.
Monday Roma v Torino, Fiorentina v Lazio.
Circumstances hurt him. Osimhen, the division’s Capocannoniere last season, was barely available during Mazzarri’s tenure – recovering from a hamstring injury in time for a small handful of appearances before departing for the Africa Cup of Nations. Despite returning exhausted, he has scored in both matches under Calzona so far.
Yet this same squad coped with absences for Osimhen early last season, when Simeone and Giacomo Raspadori stepped up to fill the void. Neither the attack nor the midfield supporting it lost any key pieces over the summer, centre-back Kim Min-jae becoming the only starter to depart when Bayern Munich triggered his €58m release clause. And if this group did need better cover, would that not also be the responsibility of De Laurentiis? He described the sporting director role as “not central” after Cristiano Giuntoli, a man widely credited for Kvaratskhelia’s bargain signing, left to join Juventus in the summer.
The squad planning since has felt chaotic, with no adequate replacement found for Kim and Napoli scrambling this January to find cover for Osimhen and Piotr Zielinski, who was omitted from Napoli’s squad Champions League knockouts squad – despite starting regularly in Serie A – because he is expected to join Inter when his contract expires in the summer.
At a press conference earlier this month, De Laurentiis offered a front-footed defence of his record as club president, noting that Napoli had closed 2023 with an almost €80m profit. He pointed to his family’s ownership of Bari, who finished third in Serie B last season, as another net benefit to Napoli, allowing for development of a greater pool of players, and spoke about the soon-to-be-released film that his media company, Filmauro, has produced on last year’s Scudetto win.
None of which will help supporters feel better about seeing their team midtable. “In the situation we find ourselves in, we just have to think one match at a time,” said Calzona when asked what his team can still aim for this season. “It’s pointless talking about projects right now … but until the maths condemns us we have to aspire to the highest objectives.”
The gap to fifth place – which could hold a Champions League spot – stands at nine points, and Napoli still have 13 games left to play. A lot can happen in the zona Cesarini, as this weekend’s opponents can attest.
| Pos | Team | P | GD | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Inter Milan | 25 | 51 | 66 |
| 2 | Juventus | 26 | 22 | 57 |
| 3 | AC Milan | 26 | 18 | 53 |
| 4 | Bologna | 26 | 16 | 48 |
| 5 | Atalanta | 25 | 24 | 46 |
| 6 | Roma | 25 | 15 | 41 |
| 7 | Lazio | 25 | 5 | 40 |
| 8 | Fiorentina | 25 | 8 | 38 |
| 9 | Napoli | 25 | 5 | 37 |
| 10 | Torino | 25 | 1 | 36 |
| 11 | Monza | 26 | -3 | 36 |
| 12 | Genoa | 26 | -3 | 33 |
| 13 | Empoli | 26 | -18 | 25 |
| 14 | Lecce | 26 | -19 | 24 |
| 15 | Udinese | 26 | -15 | 23 |
| 16 | Frosinone | 26 | -21 | 23 |
| 17 | Sassuolo | 25 | -17 | 20 |
| 18 | Verona | 26 | -13 | 20 |
| 19 | Cagliari | 26 | -23 | 20 |
| 20 | Salernitana | 26 | -33 | 13 |
