3 Reasons why Juventus beat Napoli

Kalidou Koulibaly sunk to his knees, head in his hands, as the repercussion of his error washed over him in the second minute of stoppage time at the end of the match. Usually the reliable rock at the back for Napoli, the inopportune moment that his human nature betrayed him, gave Juventus a 4-3 win in a crucial early tie between the top two teams in Italy from last season.

Juventus began the game strongly, controlling most of the play in midfield and threatening a Napoli side that looked disoriented. Just when it seemed like Juve's threat may subside, a swift counter attack ending in Danilo's goal broke the deadlock. The Portuguese defender had been on the pitch all of 26 seconds when he scored the debut goal for his new club, having replaced an injured Mattia di Sciglio.

Gonzalo Higuaín added a second in the first half, and Cristiano Ronaldo got his first goal of the season in the second. At 3-0 up Juventus were cruising for about four minutes. Manolas and Lozano scored their first goals for Napoli just two minutes apart in the 66th and 68th minutes respectively to make it a far more interesting end to the game.

The visitors had seemingly completed a comeback when another first time scorer Di Lorenzo got on the scoresheet in the 81st minute, only for all the work to be undone in the dying minutes of the game.

We could chalk this one off to luck and move on but Juventus did many things right in the game.

Higuaín's return to form

Higuaín showed glimpses of the man Juventus splashed the cash to buy from Napoli

Gonzalo Higuaín had the best single club season of his career under Maurizio Sarri at Napoli. Since then he's linked up with the Italian manager at Chelsea and now Juventus. He shone under him at Napoli but failed to have that same impact under him at Chelsea. His start to this season at juve suggests a return to old ways for him.

The striker was perhaps the most influential player on the night for Juventus. He brought Douglas Costa, Sami Khedira, Cristiano Ronaldo, and Blaise Matuidi into play and ensured almost a constant threat to Napoli's goal. Had it not been for Alex Meret's heroics, perhaps Juve would've ran away with it in the first half.

Midfield control

While De Ligt and Bonucci struggled, Pjanic shone

What kind of midfield control concedes three goals having gone up 3-0? Let's look it in the context of the game.

Two of the three goals came from set pieces. Which doesn't really require Napoli to bypass the Juve midfield, nor does it allow the Juve midfield the opportunity to prevent the goal.

To be fair, the Napoli side was building momentum for a fair part of the second half thanks to some lackadaisical defending that allowed the likes of Fabian Ruiz too much space in the middle of the park. Emre Can's introduction failed to address this threat, almost directly leading to Lozano's goal.

However, apart from a 15-minute spell in the game, Juventus managed to control the game in midfield. Miralem Pjanic ran the game and controlled the tempo. In the end, it was his freekick that Koulibaly poorly cleared into his own net.

Khedira and Matuidi, apart from contributing in nullifying Zielinski and Ruiz's influence, also exerted their attacking prowess at the other end. Khedira was denied by the post on one occasion and Matuide was heavily involved in the build up to two of the goals Juve scored on the day.

Juve have plenty of options in midfield this season, but this one seems the most promising.

Disorganised Napoli

Napoli were excellent for 15 minutes but poor for the rest of the game

Napoli almost pulled off a ridiculous comeback, but were poor for large parts of the game. For almost the entire first half, they struggled to stich together a coherent attack and didn't seem to have a plan in defence.

Pjanic and Higuain (while dropping deep) ran circles around them. Lorenzo Insigne was isolated for most of the game as well, almost forcing Carlo Ancelotti to replace him with new signing Hirving Lozano in the second half.

With Dries Mertens and Hirving Lozano combining up top, Napoli's attack started to look more potent. It also provided Zielinski and Ruiz some freedom to move in midfield. Had they been able to maintain this pressure for longer periods of time, the result may have been starkly different.

For one quarter of the game they were able to create chances and thoroughly test Wojciech Szczęsny in Juve's goal. The rest of the game felt like chaos from the Napoli point-of-view.