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SPORTSFriday 15 January 2016

Spanish Preview:                                                                                                                 Italian Preview:
                                                                                                                                 Napoli coach taking a pragmatic
Zidane looks to keep Real Madrid on a roll                                                                                       approach to teams’ Serie A lead 

TALES AZZONI                     point, Madrid is third with    best defense in the league                                       ANDREW DAMPF
AP Sports Writer                 40 points, two less than Bar-  — Barcelona and Malaga                                           AP Sports Writer
MADRID (AP) — Zinedine           celona and four less than      come next with 15 goals                                          ROME (AP) — Diego Maradona has already prom-
Zidane gets a chance             Atletico Madrid.               each.                                                            ised that he will make a splashy arrival by helicopter
to keep Real Madrid’s            Zidane has had a full week     Atletico has scored 27 times                                     if Napoli wins its first Serie A title in more than a quar-
momentum going in a              to train the squad and try     — Real Madrid has 52 goals                                       ter of a century.
home game against strug-         to reinforce his playing       and Barcelona 44 — but it’s                                      Napoli coach Maurizio Sarri is taking a more prag-
gling  Sporting  Gijon in the    style, which is based on try-  been enough to keep the                                          matic approach after the southern club claimed Se-
Spanish league this week-        ing to retain ball possession  wins coming. Atletico leads                                      rie A’s symbolic “winter title” last weekend.
end.                             and avoid long ball transi-    the league with 14 victo-                                        “I don’t attribute any importance to it,” Sarri said of
After routing Deportivo          tions from the defense to      ries, one more than Bar-                                         Napoli’s two-point lead over four-time defending
La Coruna 5-0 at the San-        the attack.                    celona. Real Madrid and                                          champion Juventus and Inter Milan after 19 of 38
tiago Bernabeu Stadium           The only bad news for the      fourth-place Villarreal each                                     rounds in Serie A.
in Zidane’s debut as head        former France great going      won 12 times in 19 rounds.                                       The halfway champion has gone on to win Serie A
coach on Saturday, Ma-           into Sunday’s match at the     “We’ve been improving                                            nearly seven out of every 10 seasons.
                                                                                                                                 The last time Napoli earned the mid-term honor was
Real Madrid’s new head coach Zinedine Zidane gives instructions from the side line during a                                      in 1990, when the team went on to claim its last title.
Spanish La Liga soccer match between Real Madrid and Deportivo Coruna at the Santiago Ber-                                       Maradona was the star of the 1990 team and also
nabeu stadium in Madrid, Saturday, Jan. 9, 2016. Zidane gets a chance to keep Real Madrid’s                                      helped Napoli to the title in 1987 — the club’s only
momentum going in a home game against struggling Sporting Gijon in the Spanish league this                                       two Serie A championships.
weekend.                                                                                                                         “It’s useless to look at statistics from the past,” Sarri
                                                                                                                                 added. “We’ve got to imagine ourselves like mar-
                                                                                                      (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)  athon runners. We’ve reached the race’s halfway
                                                                                                                                 point but we’ve still got 21 kilometers (13 miles) to
drid plays an opponent           Bernabeu is that captain       game after game,” Sime-                                          go.” The next test comes Saturday against a Sas-
that has lost seven of its last  Sergio Ramos is nursing a      one said.                                                        suolo lineup that is in sixth place and beat Inter 1-0
eight games, including the       lingering shoulder injury                                                                       last weekend.
last four. Sporting  hasn’t      that forced him to be sub-     FULL-STRENGTH BARCELO-                                           Inter can put pressure on Napoli with a win at Ata-
won a match since early          stituted at halftime against   NA                                                               lanta earlier Saturday, while Juventus will be seeking
December and is only 18th        Deportivo last Saturday.       After resting some players                                       its 10th consecutive win at Udinese on Sunday.
in the 20-team standings.        Here are other things to       in the 2-0 win over Espan-                                       Fourth-place Fiorentina, which is three points back,
It has a game in hand,           know about the 20th round:     yol in the Copa del Rey on                                       visits struggling AC Milan on Sunday.
but it’s against Barcelona.                                     Wednesday, coach Luis                                            Fifth-place Roma, which fired Rudi Garcia on
To make things worse, the        ATLETICO’S DOMINANCE           Enrique is expected to field                                     Wednesday, hosts last-place Hellas Verona.
team just found out that         Atletico Madrid, which         the team’s regular start-                                        Also this weekend, it’s: Torino vs. Frosinone; Genoa
it will be without defend-       plays at 16th-place Las        ers when Barcelona hosts                                         vs. Palermo; Bologna vs. Lazio; Carpi vs. Sampdoria;
er Bernardo Espinosa for         Palmas on Sunday, is the       eighth-place Athletic Bil-                                       and Chievo Verona vs. Empoli.
about seven months be-           hottest team in the Span-      bao on Sunday.                                                   Here are a few things to know about Serie A enter-
cause of a knee injury sus-      ish league with eight wins in  Enrique rested striker Ney-                                      ing this weekend’s matches:
tained last weekend.             its last nine games. Its only  mar and defender Gerard
Madrid, meanwhile, is            setback was a 1-0 loss at      Pique against Espanyol, but                                      GONZALO’S GOALS
boosted by the arrival of        Malaga four rounds ago.        the duo is expected to be                                        Nobody in Europe’s top leagues is scoring at a faster
Zidane, who breathed new         Diego Simeone’s team           back in the squad against                                        rate than Napoli’s Gonzalo Higuain.
life into the Spanish giant      continues to rely on solid     Athletic. Luis Suarez, who                                       The Argentine player has 18 goals in 19 Serie A
after it struggled under         defense to stay on top. At-    didn’t play Wednesday                                            matches — 20 in 23 appearances in all competitions
coach Rafa Benitez.              letico has conceded eight      because of a suspension                                          — for a rate of one goal every 89 minutes.
Another victory under the        goals in 19 matches, and       for insulting opponents in                                       In Europe, only Alex Texeira at Shakhtar Donetsk (22
command of the former            the only time it conceded      the first leg against the city                                   goals) and Nemanja Nikolic at Legia Warsaw (21
player will keep fans sat-       more than one goal in a        rival, also is set to return.                                    goals) have scored more than Higuain this season,
isfied and can move the          game was in a 2-1 home         Neymar and Suarez are the                                        while Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang at Borussia Dort-
team closer to the top of        defeat to Barcelona in the     league’s leading scorers                                         mund also has 18 goals.
the table. At the halfway        third round. It’s by far the   with 15 goals each.q                                             Lionel Messi only has nine goals in the Spanish league
                                                                                                                                 while Cristiano Ronaldo has 14.

                                                                                                                                 ROMA REVIVAL?
                                                                                                                                 With Luciano Spalletti widely expected to be named
                                                                                                                                 as the replacement for the fired Rudi Garcia, Roma
                                                                                                                                 is hoping the squad can rediscover the form that
                                                                                                                                 made it an early season title contender.
                                                                                                                                 With only one win in its last seven Serie A matches,
                                                                                                                                 Roma has dropped to fifth place, seven points be-
                                                                                                                                 hind leader Napoli.
                                                                                                                                 Roma never really recovered psychologically from
                                                                                                                                 a 6-1 rout by Barcelona in the Champions League in
                                                                                                                                 November. Spalletti coached Roma from 2005-09,
                                                                                                                                 winning two Italian Cups and an Italian Super Cup -
                                                                                                                                 the Giallorossi’s last titles of any kind. He then spent
                                                                                                                                 five years with Zenit St. Petersburg before being fired
                                                                                                                                 in March 2014. q
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