Napoli host Barcelona in the first round of the UEFA Europa League round of 16, and both teams have been in a worrying form recently. Napoli has only won once in their last five matches, and the home field advantage can hardly make up for their decline. Barcelona, on the other hand, is plagued by injuries and a porous defense, and victory seems to be out of reach. Looking back at Barcelona's recent matches, eight of their last nine official matches have seen a total of three or more goals, with a predicted average of about 2.5 goals, so it might be more cost-effective to bet on the goal mark. (Now 643 live at 4am on Thursday)
As last season's Serie A champions, Napoli's form has plummeted since the departure of manager Spaletti. Last November, the team fired the coach Rudi Garcia, and then invited Marsali to put out the fire, but the effect is still not good. Currently, Napoli is already 27 points behind Inter Milan, who is at the top of the Serie A table, and Marsali's dismissal has added a lot of uncertainty to the team. And the main scorer Vitor Ossenhan was infected with intestinal virus during the African Cup of Nations in Nigeria, so he is expected to continue to be absent in this match.
Although Napoli lacks the core of offense, the team will play with the advantage of home field to win in order to advance to the next round. Otherwise, the next round will be very difficult for the visitors. Fortunately, the strikers such as Giovanni Szemonyi and Giovanni Laskeria are not bad, so I believe they will be able to capitalize on their chances to score goals.
On Barcelona's side, their striker players Ferentolis and Zulfiaris are both injured, weakening their strength. However, the good news is that Robert Liljunovski is back in form, scoring twice in the last round of La Liga, and the new star Yemma is also doing well, so the attacking power is still trustworthy.
