Zlatan Ibrahimovic plays the heel but it is Napoli who suffer stage fright

Zlatan Ibrahimovic took some time off from co-hosting the Sanremo Music Festival to watch Milan draw with Udinese on Wednesday. After weeks of anguished speculation about how his involvement in the event might impact his team’s title push, the Swede had picked up a thigh injury that ruled him out of this game regardless.

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Nevertheless, after appearing on stage for the festival’s opening night on Tuesday, he made the 170-mile return journey to sit with teammates on the bench. Ibrahimovic could do nothing to help as Milan coughed up another two points in a title race that is starting to slip away from them.

The Rossoneri were lucky to take anything from the game at all, having trailed as late as the 95th minute before Jens Stryger Larsen gifted them a penalty with a needless handball. Frontrunners through the first five months of this campaign, Milan were top of the table three weeks ago but will be six points off the pace if Inter beat Parma on Thursday.

Ibrahimovic did not dwell on that situation as he rejoined festivities in Sanremo via video link a little after midnight, instead inviting colleagues in the studio to join a moment’s applause in memory of Davide Astori, the Fiorentina and Italy defender who died in his sleep three years ago at the age of just 31. Then he was back to teasing the main host, Amadeus, warning not to touch anything while he was gone.

The decision by Sanremo’s organisers to book Ibrahimovic already looks like a hit. Performing jokes without an audience can take some getting used to but the footballer had looked immediately at home playing the heel on Tuesday, trying to sell four of the festival’s singers to Liverpool (“they need some help”) and awarding himself “Man of the Stage” honours in lieu of any footballing ones.

For sheer entertainment this week, though, you would have done even better to check out Sassuolo’s showdown with Napoli. Six goals, three penalties and two shots off the woodwork do not even tell the half of it. Where Sanremo had Ibrahimovic in a monogrammed suit, the Mapei Stadium had Gennaro Gattuso hurling off his jacket in a fury.

The game started at a chaotic tempo, both teams pressing high and mirroring one another in 4-2-3-1 formations. Mistakes came thick and fast at both ends, but Lorenzo Insigne thought he had opened the scoring with a moment of technical perfection, gliding in from the left and whipping his shot around the goalkeeper from a tight angle. The goal was disallowed after a VAR review for offside.

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Instead, Sassuolo took the lead via an own goal: Nikola Maksimovic diverting Domenico Berardi’s free-kick beyond his own goalkeeper. Piotr Zielinski levelled things up with a gorgeous left-footed finish from the edge of the box. Sassuolo got their noses back in front just before the interval, Berardi converting his spot-kick after Ciccio Caputo was barged by Elseid Hysaj.

Back and forth they went, taking turns to counter in a game of football that sometimes felt more like basketball for the speed that the ball shuttled from end to end. Berardi span in from the right and twirled the ball against the crossbar from 25 yards. Caputo rattled another shot off the post. Sassuolo were getting on top. At which point, Napoli equalised.

There was magic again from Insigne, accelerating beyond Maxime Lopez to cross for Giovanni Di Lorenzo, who volleyed home at close range. With 18 minutes left to play, the game was anybody’s. Then Sassuolo handed it to Napoli.

In the 90th minute, Lukas Haraslin bundled over Di Lorenzo in the box. Insigne buried the penalty. Napoli just needed to hang on through injury time, and the points were theirs. But they couldn’t. Kostas Manolas fouled Haraslin when the Slovak seemed to be running the ball out of bounds. Caputo beat Alex Meret from the spot, sealing a 3-3 draw.

It was a result neither team wanted. Sassuolo are chasing a return to Europe, and a win would have helped them to close the gap on Napoli in sixth. The Partenopei, though, are fighting for a Champions League berth, without which major sales might be required this summer. Before that, Gattuso is battling to save his job.

The manager’s frustration at the end was obvious, as he threw his jacket to the floor. Even he looked calm in comparison to Insigne, though, who booted a bottle and then an advertising hoarding on the way to the tunnel and turned around to scream: “Piece of shit team.”

It was unclear whether his anger was directed at teammates or opponents. Less ambiguous is the fact that Gattuso is in difficulty. There were reports this week of a clear-the-air phone call with the club’s owner, Aurelio De Laurentiis, after the manager had lamented a lack of support from the club. But results on the pitch remain insufficient for a team that not so long ago was challenging Juventus for the Scudetto, and which has broken its transfer record in consecutive summers.

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Injuries deprived Gattuso of both Victor Osimhen and Hirving Lozano for this game. He can hardly be blamed for the shortage of options up front, with Andrea Petagna also out and Dries Mertens only just back from an ankle complaint.

What he can be criticised for is getting his substitutions wrong. Why introduce Manolas for Maksimovic with five minutes remaining, a change that did nothing to alter his team’s shape but did introduce a defender with cold legs who proceeded to give away a penalty? The attack leading up to that mistake could have been prevented if Tiemoué Bakayoko, another second-half introduction, had simply have cleared the ball out of bounds.

Beyond any individual decisions, the disparity in Napoli’s home and away performances has also become impossible to ignore. They have conceded just one goal in their last six matches at what is now the Diego Armando Maradona Stadium – a run that includes a win over Juventus and a Coppa Italia draw against Atalanta – but 17 in six on their travels. At a time of empty stadiums, it is a puzzling discrepancy indeed.

There were no post-game remarks from Gattuso on Wednesday, as Napoli maintain a press silence that has extended now for several weeks. This team is trying to do its talking on the pitch, but unlike Ibrahimovic at Sanremo, it seems to have come down with stage fright.