Carlo Ancelotti notes Napoli have reason to worry, but “so do Liverpool and PSG” going into the decisive final Champions League group games.
The situation remains wide open after the Partenopei beat Red Star Belgrade 3-1 and Paris Saint-Germain defeated Liverpool 2-1.
Carlo Ancelotti notes Napoli have reason to worry, but “so do Liverpool and PSG” going into the decisive final Champions League group games.
The situation remains wide open after the Partenopei beat Red Star Belgrade 3-1 and Paris Saint-Germain defeated Liverpool 2-1.
“Nobody would’ve said we’d be top of the group and unbeaten after five games. So we should be worried, but so should Liverpool and PSG, because playing in Belgrade is by no means easy,” the Coach told Sky Sport Italia.
“We cannot wait for the game to come to us, no matter who we are facing. We have to take it by the scruff of the neck, otherwise we end up losing aggression, being sluggish and that’s why we conceded a goal in the last half-hour.
“Football is curious. People drove us crazy saying we never scored from corners, then we scored from our first corner of the game. Statistics are made to be proved wrong.”
Napoli beat Liverpool at the Stadio San Paolo 1-0 and that clean sheet could end up proving decisive, because when the head-to-head record is even, away goals come into play.
“We won’t have our fans at Anfield the way we do here, but we already proved that we can beat them. Quite simply, we can’t make calculations. We have to go there and win.
“It is such a difficult and balanced group that I knew it wasn’t going to be decided today. We now have an advantage over Liverpool and Paris Saint-Germain thanks to these five games and must try to make the most of that in the last 90 minutes.
“This group tested us more than any other could and we have proved ourselves in Europe. We proved that we can fight it out with everyone.
“At the same time, we showed that perhaps we could’ve done better in Serie A. Perhaps the Chievo game is the only one where we had a big drop in intensity, but we haven’t done so badly, have we? There are some very strong teams behind us in the table.
“This team gives me strong emotions, it had been two years since I’d felt such strong emotions. When you feel for a team, you perform better.”