Italian Football 
/ Ben Lyttleton / 31 January 2011 / Leave a Comment 
Edinson Cavani struck again against Sampdoria
"Napoli were the weekend's most impressive victors: they smashed Sampdoria 4-0, with Edinson Cavani scoring his second hat-trick this month."
The Milan clubs battle to eventful wins but the big news of the weekend may turn out to be Napoli's Cavani-inspired victory over Sampdoria.
Napoli first reached third place in Serie A this season after Week 13. Back then, Lazio were just slipping down from their early position of dominance, AC Milan moving top, and Inter were way back in sixth. This quartet remain the top four sides in Italy, and they all won this weekend, but the manner in which they did so could provide some pointers to what is shaping up to be an exciting Scudetto race.
Milan did what they needed to do, beating Cagliari 2-0 to maintain their four-point lead. But it was no easy task: Mark van Bommel was sent off on his debut and Milan, with six midfielders missing, played out the match with Robinho, a striker and Thiago Silva, a centre-half, in the midfield. Milan are [1.79] to end the season in top spot.
Inter's win over Palermo was even more complicated, as the reigning European champions, coming into the game after their first league defeat under Leonardo, to Udinese, were 2-0 down at half-time. January signing Giampaolo Pazzini came on for his debut at half-time and he turned the game, scoring twice and earning the penalty for Samuel Eto'o's winning spot-kick. Inter are nine points back and [4.5] to hold onto their crown.
But it was Napoli, [9.0] for the title, who were the most impressive
victors: they smashed Pazzini's former club Sampdoria 4-0, with Edinson Cavani following up his hat-trick against Juventus earlier this month with another treble. It was his fourth hat-trick of the season and he is reaping the rewards of coach Walter Mazzarri's decision to play him as centre-forward, and not the second striker position he held at Palermo.
He is now top of the scoring charts on 17 goals, two ahead of Antonio Di Natale, and one of only two strikers in the top seven who has not scored a penalty for his team (the other is Marco di Vaio). He is [2.5] to finish as top scorer with Di Natale [2.66] and Eto'o [5.4] on 13 goals.
Napoli's targets have now changed, unsurprisingly. At the start of the season reaching the Europa League was the challenge, but now they are eyeing a Champions League place and even more. "We know we can compete for a Champions League spot and also something even bigger, we can challenge for the Scudetto," Cavani told Calcio Italia magazine in an interview published this week. "It doesn't mean that if we don't win it, we will be failures, but we are in the hunt and we have to try. It can't hurt to dream, especially if you keep working hard."
Napoli are also in the running for this season's Europa League: they face Villarreal in the next round, with the winners playing Metalist Kharkiv or Bayer Leverkusen. It's a tough draw for the Neapolitans, who are [2.0] to sink the Yellow Submarine and [34.0] to win the trophy.
Owner Aurelio de Laurentiis has had no time to congratulate himself for the brilliant Cavani deal: he paid €5m for this season's loan and will pay another €12m in the summer to make the move permanent: instead he is looking for more striking talent, and today looks likely to sign striker Tim Matavz from Dutch club Groningen.
Matavz, who has scored 12 goals this season, will be the latest Slovenian to play in Serie A, following the success of Palermo's Josip Ilicic and Armin Bacinovic, not to mention Udinese's Samir Handanovic. He is not the only Slovene moving to Italy this month: Palermo have brought in defender Sinisa Andzelkovic from Maribor and midfielder Jasmin Kurtic from Gorica, while Genoa signed 18-year old midfielder Enej Jelenic from Koper.
For now, though, all the talk in Naples is of Cavani. Napoli have not won the title since 1990, when Diego Maradona's 16 goals inspired them to glory: 21 years on, another South American is leading the charge for them.
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