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Although Napoli have disappointed somewhat this season, it wasn’t unfair to suggest they drew a long straw when they were lined up against relegation battlers Siena in their first ever Coppa Italia semi-final while Juventus and Milan locked horns in the other tie. However, clearly the advantage still wasn’t enough, with Giuseppe Sannino’s men emerging with a narrow lead for the return leg at the Stadio San Paolo. The two sides lined up in broadly the same formation: Napoli in their usual 3-4-3 and Siena opting to match them. Just as Marek Hamsik played deeper down the Napoli left than Goran Pandev on the right, former Napoli man Daniele Mannini played deeper than Ferreira Reginaldo for Siena – although about 15 minutes into the game they switched sides, putting Mannini against former Siena player Juan Camilo Zuniga. Although of course there were other personnel-specific weaknesses, this meant that the two sides had to deal with the same issues shape-wise. Siena would drop back very deep when Napoli had the ball, but would press if the defenders attempted to move forward with the ball. This meant that when Napoli had the ball deep, there were often six players not really offering [...]
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