Lorenzo Insigne opens the scoring against Feyenoord

Napoli needed to get off to a hot start against Feyenoord in order to get their first win of the Champions League group stage this season, and thanks to Lorenzo Insigne and quality play from the rest of the front line, they’ve done exactly that.

The buildup started with Dries Mertens putting pressure on Feyenoord’s defense, and Allan pushing up to support him. That little bit of extra pressure helped force a turnover that Jose Callejon was right on top of, and he slipped a ball across the field to Lorenzo Insigne that Feyenoord’s defense read poorly.

That poor read left Insigne tons of room to roam through, and he strode up the pitch nearly unopposed before rifling his shot home with a thunderous and accurate finish. It continued his rampant start to the season in a meaningful and important way, and hopefully we see more of this from the native son of Naples.

But more than that, this was a fantastic goal to see from Napoli in general. It wasn’t the now-classic pass-and-break-away goal we’ve gotten so used to seeing from Maurizio Sarri’s Napoli squad — it was the result of smart pressure, hard work, and top-notch awareness of the situation. That’s not something we’ve consistently seen from Napoli these last couple of years, so hopefully this goal wasn’t the exception, but rather a harbinger of things to come.