Davide Ballardini believes “Napoli are one of the strongest teams in Serie A,” but his very Neapolitan Genoa can still cause an upset tomorrow.
Davide Ballardini believes “Napoli are one of the strongest teams in Serie A,” but his very Neapolitan Genoa can still cause an upset tomorrow.
The Grifone visit the Stadio San Paolo on Sunday evening, click here for a match preview.
“We are facing one of the strongest teams in Serie A, if not the strongest, and in squad terms they are second to none,” declared Coach Ballardini in his Press conference.
“However, this Genoa side can pick up points against anyone. The fact we’ll be facing Sampdoria” data-scaytid=”10″>Sampdoria in the derby next week will not affect my choices, as we are taking it one game at a time and every game is worth three points.”
There were some concerns in training this morning when Ciro Immobile picked up a knock, but Genoa can count on a trio of Neapolitan forwards in Immobile, Marco Borriello and Andrea Bertolacci.
“We’ll see if they will be able to give us something extra or if the emotion of the occasion could have a negative effect on them. They are certainly very attached to their home town.”
Ballardini is also a familiar face for Napoli hitman Edinson Cavani, having worked with him at Palermo.
“At the time I had to do something to replace Amauri and that season Cavani, Fabrizio Miccoli and Fabio Simplicio scored tons of goals. He is an extraordinary player every day of the week, as he always wants to improve.
“How do we contain Cavani? Perhaps the only way would be to hope he doesn’t play at all! We must shut off the supply, stopping the moves before they start. If he gets away from defenders, then it really is tough to stop him.”