Il Mattino tallies empty seats, Tmw opens Meret renewal file

On the day Napoli host Bologna, the front pages skip team news to count unsold tickets at the Maradona and open a transfer question over a goalkeeper who isn't even playing.

by Gennaro SanninoSunday 13 September, 08:40 CET· 1 hour ago

I NUMERI

Arena Napoli International graphic

Napoli host Bologna on Sunday 13 September looking for a first home league win of the season, on the back of three straight defeats. Yet the papers this morning are not looking at the team news. They are counting empty seats at the Maradona on one side, and opening a contract question on the other. Read together, the two stories say more about the mood before kick-off than any lineup could.

Il Mattino leads on ticket sales: "Napoli-Bologna, 17,000 tickets sold", the paper's headline reads, adding "three reasons behind the missed sell-out". What those three reasons are, the headline does not say — and neither can we. All we know is the frame the paper has chosen: a stadium that is not filling up, not a team looking to turn its season around on the pitch.

TuttoMercatoWeb runs on a completely different track, opening a transfer-market question in the middle of the results crisis: "Meret-Napoli, moving forward together? Tmw: the renewal could be discussed soon." The headline suggests talks between the club and the goalkeeper are under way, without giving figures or length of contract. That is as far as the headline goes, and as far as we can go with it.

Our take

It's striking that on the day Napoli chase their first home win of the season, against a Bologna side that arrived without its head coach and with four players missing, the front pages choose to look elsewhere.

The ticket numbers are real, and they say something serious about the relationship between the fanbase and the team after Como, Inter and Arsenal. It would have been honest to report that plainly, instead of selling it as a riddle-headline with 'three reasons' left unspecified.

And opening the renewal file on a goalkeeper sidelined by injury, on the very day his deputy is the one in goal, pulls attention away from where it should be: the pitch, and the players out there trying to stop the slide.