Senegalese Dia Delays Coronation of Napoli as Serie A Champions

Duro Ikhazuagbe 

Senegalese forward, Boulaye Dia caused Napoli fans to suspend their planned celebrations of their first Serie A title in 33 years after being held to a draw by Salernitana at the Stadio Diego Armando Maradona.

Before the kickoff in Naples, Inter Milan had watered the ground for the celebration at the Maradona Stadium by handing out a 3-1 defeat to second placed Lazio at San Siro. A win was all Victor Osimhen and his teammates needed to make the Serie A title a done deal for Luciano Spalletti’s men. 

And Napoli were on course for the victory party to begin when defender Mathias Olivera headed home a 62nd-minute corner. Their fans who had covered Naples streets in Napoli’s blue and white colours were just waiting for the final whistle.  

But Boulaye Dia, a Villarreal player on loan at Salernitana, hammered a left-footed drive six minutes from time to silence an expectant crowd who made a cacophony of noise and set off blue smoke flares inside and outside the stadium.

With this draw, Napoli will need to go to their next game in Udinese on Thursday, hoping for a win. They actually need two points to wrap up the Italian topflight league.

Second-placed Lazio, who are 18 points behind, must beat Sassuolo on Wednesday (20:00 BST) and pray for a repeat of another draw for Napoli to further delay the coronation of Osimhen and his teammates.

A disappointed Spalletti didn’t mince words in expressing how he felt with the draw.

“The players are obviously disappointed at not having made our brilliant fans happy tonight,” Spalletti told DAZN.

“But you’ve seen for a while that these points are the hardest ones to get.

“We represent their dreams and that means it’s right that their dreams are realised by us.”