Villarreal 0 : 2 Napoli - Napoli leave it late

Posted Wednesday, December 07, 2011 by PA

Napoli scored twice in the last 25 minutes to beat Villarreal 2-0 and book their place in the last 16 of the Champions League at El Madrigal.

Goals from Gokhan Inler and Marek Hamsik gave the Serie A side the win they needed to pip Premier League leaders Manchester City to second place in Group A.

With City beating group winners Bayern Munich 2-0, Napoli needed a victory and the nerves began to jangle as they failed to find a way through for the first hour.

But they finally made the breakthrough in the 65th minute thanks to a low strike from Inler and Hamsik soon added a second to complete the job.

Villarreal had lost all five games in the group before tonight, going down 2-0 in the reverse fixture in Italy, and were on the backfoot early on.

Camilo Zuniga stung the hands of home goalkeeper Diego Lopez with a right-footed effort from 12 yards.

Despite having nothing more than pride to play for, the Spaniards were determined to make things as difficult as possible for Napoli and veteran midfielder Marcos Senna headed wide from Jonathan de Guzman's corner.

The Italians potent strike pairing of Ezequiel Lavezzi and Edinson Cavani were receiving little service, with their side's need for a goal getting urgent as City went ahead against already qualified Bayern.

Marco Ruben brought a parry out of visiting keeper Morgan de Sanctis with a long-range effort at the start of the second half before Inler eased Napoli nerves.

Minutes after sending a 30-yard shot wide of the post, the Swiss midfielder received the ball from Hamsik 20 yards out and drilled a left-footed shot into the bottom-right corner in the 65th minute.

Diego Lopez then produced a fine double save, first pushing out a Hamsik corner and then turning away a Lavezzi follow-up, as Napoli looked for the cushion of a second goal and it arrived 13 minutes from time.

Hamsik poked the ball home from close range after Lavezzi's ball in had created a goalmouth scramble.

With the points and their place in the next round safe, the visitors could afford to ease off in the closing stages and De Sanctis was called on to parry away a Gonzalo Rodriguez effort from the edge of the area to preserve Napoli's clean sheet.