More gallows humour from a fanbase that proved long ago that its relationship with the club could survive a defeat. They had endured six already in the first six rounds of this Serie A season: the only team in the division without a winor even a single point. The last time they were in Serie A, in 2024-25, Venezia finished 19th.
The time before that, in 2021-22, they finished bottom. A 3-1 defeat to Atalanta in the first game back after this month’s international break pushed Venezia to a breaking point. The club fired the manager Giovanni Stroppa, who had led them to the Serie B title and promotion the previous season.
His replacement, Davide Nicola, is a renowned survival specialist, though his most recent appointment at Cremonese ended with his dismissal last March, when the team were 18th. If Venice’s Lagoon has a deep end, then Nicola was thrown into it, beginning this latest job at home to last season’s runners-up, Napoli. But a man whose past relegation escapes have drawn comparison with Harry Houdini could hardly be afraid of the water.
Nicola’s first Venezia team sat in a patient low block, refusing to be drawn out. And when an opportunity was casually presented to them at the start of the second half, they took it. A long punt down the left by Simon Sohm took a kind bounce off the head of the Napoli defender Amir Rrahmani, who lost track of it in the air.
Venezia’s Akor Adams took a touch to his right before striking back across his body from the edge of the area, wrong-footing Napoli’s goalkeeper Alex Meret. Stung to life, Napoli introduced Kevin De Bruyne, Alisson Santos and Rasmus Højlund from the bench. None of them could find a way past the Venezia goalkeeper Filip Stankovic, who saved a penalty from De Bruyne and made a sensational one-handed stop from Stanislav Lobotka before denying Alisson in the 90th minute as well.
The game ended 1-0, Venezia’s first win of the campaign. A dream start for Nicola. And a result that left some people wondering whether this could be the beginning of the end for Napoli’s manager Massimiliano Allegri.
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