Audacious Lorenzo Insigne shot gives Napoli 2-0 lead

Napoli have a 2-0 lead over Sampdoria thanks to Lorenzo Insigne, keeping them in excellent position to take the three points that they crucially need to give themselves a shot at finishing second in Serie A on the last matchday of the season. But more than the importance of the goal, the incredible and audacious quality of Insigne’s strike is something to behold.

It’s a solo effort that really shows off just how good Insigne can be on the ball, topped off with a jaw-dropping finish made precisely despite being on the run. Insigne picked out the far corner perfectly, and did it with a beautifully-weighted lob that, thanks to the positioning of goalkeeper Christian Puggioni, had no room for error.

But take a look at one other detail of the goal — while Insigne was making his run, he checked back over his shoulder several times. He wasn’t looking for defenders, though, knowing he had Matias Silvestre and Bartosz Bereszynski well beaten. He was looking for Dries Mertens, knowing that it was more important for his friend and teammate to score for his chase of the capocannoniere scoring title. Insigne had been looking to feed him the ball repeatedly all throughout the first half, and only when he was sure Mertens was too far away to help the scoring effort did he take his shot.

And what a shot it was.