Napoli 0 - 1 Chievo: Lopez strike earns Chievo victory

Posted Monday, September 15, 2014 by PA

Maxi Lopez scored the only goal of the game as Chievo upset Napoli 1-0 at the Stadio San Paolo to pick up their first points of the new season.

Chievo were two minutes away from winning last season's corresponding fixture 1-0 only to concede a late equaliser to Raul Albiol, but they would not be denied this time as Eugenio Corini's men held on to Lopez's 49th-minute strike.

That came after Napoli striker Gonzalo Higuain had missed a first-half penalty for the hosts, whose stuttering start to the season continued.

Rafael Benitez's men were knocked out of the Champions League play-offs by Athletic Bilbao and, although they did manage to win their opening Serie A match against Genoa, it needed a 90th-minute strike from Jonathan de Guzman for them to do so.

Despite those struggles and last season's scare against Chievo, the Partenopei would have been expected to pick up a three-point haul on Sunday and that might well have been the case had Higuain made the most of his chance in the 26th minute.

Higuain was brought down in the box by Bostjan Cesar but he could not take advantage from the resulting spot-kick, the Argentina striker seeing his penalty well saved by Francesco Bardi diving to his right.

That came after the impressive Bardi had already kept out efforts from Higuain and Marek Hamsik, while Lorenzo Insigne and Juan Camilo Zuniga also tested the visiting keeper either side of the break as Napoli sought the opener.

However, they could not find a way through and would end up paying for their profligacy.

Napoli were given a warning of potential trouble to come when Lopez struck the crossbar in the 31st minute, but the hosts would not be so fortunate at the start of the second half when the much-travelled former Barcelona and AC Milan hitman netted the decider.

Mariano Izco's threaded pass picked out Lopez's run to the edge of the area perfectly and the 30-year-old Argentinian took a touch before firing a left-footed shot into the far bottom corner.