Napoli coach Luciano Spalletti stated on Tuesday that the team has won “critical matches” without Super Eagles striker Victor Osimhen as the club prepares for the Champions League quarter-final, first leg encounter against AC Milan.
Napoli’s best player and Serie A’s leading scorer was in a race against time to participate in Wednesday’s match at the San Siro and was left out of Spalletti’s squad before traveling to Milan.
After Osimhen’s injury on international service, Napoli has been pounded at home by Milan and scored an uninspiring win at lowly Lecce.
Nevertheless, Spalletti pointed out that his squad won every game while Osimhen was sidelined last autumn as proof that the 24-year-absence old’s will not damage his team.
“A team’s strength is never simply the sum of its parts. It is the total of all of its characteristics, how they coexist, and how the team works together.
“Our squad has proved that it can play regardless of the configuration chosen at the start of the encounter… We’ve gotten to this position because we’ve won crucial games without Osimhen, and I expect the same thing this time,” Spalletti told reporters.
Giacomo Raspadori of Italy, who trained with the rest of the squad on Tuesday, might step in for Osimhen.
He is Napoli’s sole healthy striker after the club disclosed on Tuesday that Giovanni Simeone had a hamstring problem.
Guardiola and Turkish coffee
Simeone came in as a second-half substitute for Raspadori in Napoli’s 2-1 win over Lecce on Friday before leaving the field hurt in the last 10 minutes.
“I need to evaluate Raspadori because he only got real team training today.” “We have another half-day to figure out who will play in that position,” Spalletti added.
Spalletti also had time to respond to Pep Guardiola, who joked to reporters on Monday that he didn’t want to talk about Napoli because Spalletti was “sensitive.”
When asked whether he was flattered by Guardiola naming his side the greatest in Europe after Napoli beat Eintracht Frankfurt in the last 16, the 64-year-old said it was “a game that people play to put pressure on other clubs.”
Spalletti playfully rose up in tribute to Guardiola, regarded as one of the all-time great coaches, telling reporters that he had “learned so many things from him.”
“For me, Guardiola is comparable to Klopp or other great coaches… “It’s an honor when a coach like Guardiola talks good of Napoli and compliments our style of play,” Spalletti remarked.
“But to claim we can win the Champions League is a very other story.”
“In this tournament, we’re not that squad that needs to prove what it’s made of. We’ve already demonstrated enough, we’ve achieved our goal, and we’ve made history.
“Having said that, I hope I can have a good laugh with him about it (at the Champions League final in June) over a wonderful Turkish coffee.”
