North vs South in Italy: Always a tense rivalry

Even though the relationship between Northern and Southern Italy has improved, there's still cultural, political and historical differences. These play out in the football matches between the big teams from each region, such as when Juventus from the north meet Napoli from the south. The sporting rivalry has increased since the 1980s when Napoli became more regular contenders for trophies, led by legend player Diego Maradona. This should be an all-action match!

These teams have little in common geographically as Juventus have to travel 800 kilometers to reach their opponents. The trip home will be especially long if the match ends in defeat.

There should be plenty of energy on the pitch in this game, as both sides have had time to recuperate from their last game. Let's hope both teams are ready to give it all.

Napoli form and stats

Home games in the Serie A have been a walk in the park for Napoli so far, with 22 points won from 8 matches; 7 wins, 1 draw and 0 losses.

Napoli enjoyed a nice away win last time out, playing at Sampdoria's place. The match ended 2-0 with Elmas and Osimhen scoring. Rui was "man of the match" with a rating of 8.15 out of 10. The defender Rui served one assist, hit three key passes and won 7 of 14 duels.

The hosts are modest favourites in this match, with the bookmakers estimating the chance of a home win at about 50% +- five percent. It's interesting to look at how Napoli have performed under similar circumstances, so here are some numbers: When modest favourites like this (we found 5 games) they have won 2 times, drawn 1 and lost 2.

The match schedule is unforgiving for Napoli as they have a new game in only four days, a Coppa Italia match thankfully also at home. Cremonese are visiting.

Napoli are showing their attacking force in their league home games this season, scoring more than 2,5 goals per game on average (21 goals in 8 games). Napoli are not conceding a lot of goals here at Stadio Diego Armando Maradona in the league, averaging less than one per game. The total is 6 from 8 matches.

Juventus form and stats

4 wins, 2 draws and 2 losses. That’s the product of Juventus, who have the fewest conceded goals (7) in Serie A, playing as the away team in the Serie A this season. Juventus have been producing wins at home as well, producing a total of eight victories in a row regardless of arena.

The Juventus goalkeeper Wojciech Szczesny is collecting clean sheets like a laundry worker. It's been 756 league minutes without conceding a goal, and counting.

Juventus won their last game, 1-0 versus Udinese played at home. Danilo was the top performer of the team in that game with a match score of 8.41. The defender Danilo scored one goal and won 5 of 9 duels.

Low on goals? 12 of this club's last 16 league matches have contained two goals or less.

The visitors have scored 5 goals from 8 away games in the league, an average of less than one per game. It's worth mentioning that 3 of these goals has been scored in their last three away matches. Juventus are defending well in their away games, having conceded only 4 times in 8 matches. For more goal statistics, check out the Statistics tab above. There's been improvement defensively lately, as only 0 of these goals has been conceded in their last three away matches.

Head 2 Head

As for the last ten games between these two teams, there's three Napoli victories, two draws and five Juventus wins. Over/under statistics; six of these games ended with three goals or more, four matches with two goals or less.

Top Goalscorers

V. Osimhen 10 goals

K. Kvaratskhelia 6 goals

D. Vlahović 6 goals

Napoli missing players

Juventus missing players