Being overly excited with the chance to play Barcelona in a friendly match, Napoli were given a huge lesson by the European champion ahead of the Italian side’s Champions League campaign this summer.
Getting battered 5-0 at Nou Camp in the annual Gamper Trophy surely squashed the Naples’ confidence in approaching the new season, but the club’s coach, Walter Mazzarri isn’t that overly concern with the high margin defeat as he believes his players have learned something after the defeat.
Mazzarri claimed that the result have never been his main goals in the friendly game against Barcelona as the understand that a defeat is something normal considering the quality of the Catalan giant players. The coach believes that the match is important for Napoli players’ growth, especially since most of them haven’t really played in the highest stage of European competition, especially fighting teams like Barcelona in a much more regular basis.
“We came here to Barcelona to improve. The result only matters up until a certain point. The important thing is that we needed this match – to grow as a team and to get ready for the games that matter in a certain way,” Mazzarri added.
Despite trying to lift up the Napoli players’ spirit, Mazzarri obviously acknowledged that his team need to work on plenty of things if they want to compete in the Champions League this season. Something that the Partenopei’s star forward, Edinson Cavani, perfectly understand as after the match against Barcelona, the Uruguayan international believes that the defeat is obviously not something pretty for the Neapolitan, that are trying to return into the European football height.
“It was always going to be a tough test against a side full of champions. Now we just have to continue to work hard because we made a lot of mistakes against Barcelona. Things couldn’t have gone worse out there. It’s not nice to lose in such a manner,” Cavani stated.
