The Napoli manager Walter Mazzarri has said that his team will not give up the opportunity to progress into the last 16 stage of the Europa league despite suffering a heavy defeat against Viktoria Plzen following a 3-0 result in the first leg. One of the primary objectives for Napoli this season is to win the title and also qualify for the Champions League, but they are also concentrating on the Europa league to a certain extent as well. After going through a run of four consecutive defeats in the month of December, Napoli have once again regained their form.
The undefeated in the matches played over the last few weeks until the match against Viktoria Plzen. Napoli were coming on the back of the 1-1 draw with archrivals Lazio. Due to their focus on the weekend’s match against Sampdoria, they were unable to give their best against Viktoria Plzen. The 3-0 defeat away from home almost ends any hope of progression to the next round, but Mazzarri is confident that his players will put up a fight in the return leg at Napoli in a week’s time. The draw against Lazio has meant that Juventus have once again been able to pull away from Napoli in the table.
“We will do our best to go through. We want to undo the damage that was done in the first leg. My players want to put in the effort it will require. We will do all we can for 95 minutes. In the first game we were not good but I must also compliment Viktoria because they are a very good team,” said Mazzarri. After coming within three points of Juventus only a few weeks ago, Napoli have fallen four points behind the leaders after the recent round of results in the Italian Serie A.