Life under Ajax manager Alfred Schreuder was going swimmingly with seven consecutive wins to follow his disappointing Super Cup debut defeat, that is until his side recorded a three-game winless run for the first time since 2020. That current winless run culminated in a 1-1 draw at home to G.A Eagles, yet when asked in the aftermath if he was nervous for this tougher encounter with Napoli, Schreuder simply replied “why should I be nervous?”.
There certainly are reasons for Ajax nerves to be jangling. Those range from the fact that they have failed to progress from seven of their nine UEFA Champions League (UCL) group stages, to their mere 27% win-rate across 49 historical encounters with Italian opponents (W13, D18, L18). However, this is their first UEFA encounter with Napoli, so perhaps a fresh start is on the cards.
Napoli manager Luciano Spalletti described his side’s performance in a 3-1 win over Torino at the weekend as “superlative” as they continued their stunning unbeaten start to the campaign (W8, D2). They’re now over halfway to matching their club record for unbeaten games which was a run of 19 during 2017, and considering Napoli are unbeaten in 14 of their last 16 UCL games, they may be confident of edging ever closer to that record run.
However, Napoli have only ever won once in eight UEFA encounters with Dutch opponents (D3, L4), with no victories on Dutch soil (D2, L2). That could be about to change if Napoli can continue their incredible away form during 2022/23 which has seen them net 2.4 goals on average per away game, thanks in part to recent away wins against reigning Italian champions AC Milan (2-1), and Europa League finalists Rangers (3-0)!
Players to watch: Ajax’s Steven Bergwijn has his best goals per-game ratio with Ajax than at any other club, with eight goals in 11 appearances, the last seven of which came in winning causes. Trying to outdo him will be his former PSV teammate and now Napoli star Hirving Lozano – he never played out a draw against Ajax while in the Netherlands (W2, L2) and scored just once in the process.
Hot streak: Ajax have not drawn any of their last 14 European home games (W8, L6).
