Napoli vs Liverpool Match Preview

Napoli vs Liverpool Match Preview

Napoli and Liverpool will meet in the UEFA Champions League group stage for a third time in the last five seasons. The Italian club won their home game against the Reds in both 2018-19 (1-0) and 2019-20 (2-0).

Napoli have won five of their six UEFA Champions League home games against clubs from England’s Premier League, losing the other 2-4 to Manchester City in November 2017. Both of their last two such matches have been wins over Liverpool (October 2018, September 2019).

Liverpool have won each of their last three away games against Italian sides in European competition; they had only won three of their first 14 such visits beforehand (D3 L8).

This will be Napoli’s seventh UEFA Champions League season, and first since 2019-20. The Azzurri have lost just one of their last 12 group stage games in the competitions (W5 D6), although that was to Liverpool in December 2018 (0-1).

Liverpool won all six of their group stages games in last season’s UEFA Champions League. No English club have ever won seven consecutive group games in the competition’s history.

Liverpool won all six of their away games in last season’s UEFA Champions League, scoring 2+ goals each time. In the competition’s history, only two sides have had longer away winning runs: Ajax (seven in March 1997) and FC Bayern München (seven in February 2014).

Napoli have only lost their first match of a UEFA Champions League season in one of their six previous campaigns in the competition (W3 D2), a 1-2 defeat to Shakhtar Donetsk in 2017-18.

Liverpool have only lost their opening match of a UEFA Champions League season in one of their last 12 appearances in the competition (W8 D3) – that defeat was, however, away at Napoli in 2019-20 (0-2).

Napoli will be Luciano Spalletti’s fourth club managed in the UEFA Champions League, after Roma, Zenit St Petersburg and Internazionale. He will be the fifth manager to take charge of at least three different Italian sides in the competition, after Carlo Ancelotti (Parma, Juventus, Milan, Napoli), Alberto Zaccheroni (Milan, Lazio, Internazionale), Fabio Capello (Milan, Roma, Juventus) and Claudio Ranieri (Juventus, Roma, Internazionale).

Mo Salah scored seven goals in last season’s UEFA Champions League group stage for Liverpool; only Ruud van Nistelrooy for Manchester United in 2004-05 (eight) has ever scored more in a single group for an English club in the competition. Salah also has 11 Champions League assists for the Reds, just one shy of the club’s all-time record (12 by Steven Gerrard and James Milner).