Napoli's rise in recent years

Napoli were languishing in the Serie C until a few years ago but things have changed dramatically for the southern club lately. At present, the former Italy champions are joint-third in the top flight, level on points with Milan.

Edy Reja has steered his team to unthinkable heights as Napoli are currently nine points adrift of defending champions Inter and three behind Juventus.

There are many theories for Napoli's surge of late. But, is it a mere fluke or a result of years of careful planning?

Some critics expect Napoli to run out of steam in the latter stages of the season but others think that they have established themselves among the major forces in the Serie A.

In my opinion, Napoli's flawless displays have not happened by sheer coincidence. On the contrary, they are reaping rich dividends for the forward-looking vision of three men, namely club owner and president Aurelio De Laurentiis, club general manager Pierpaolo Marino and coach Reja.

When De Laurentiis took over the presidency in 2004, Napoli had just been declared bankrupt and demoted to the third division.

As a renowned film producer, De Laurentiis has a knack of making his ventures a success. Napoli had to wait two years to secure promotion to the Serie B and Reja went on to lead the club to the top division the following season. Under the former Brescia and Torino coach, Napoli were slowly, but surely, attaining most of their goals.

On their return to top-flight football last season, after a six-year absence, Napoli did well to finish in a creditable eighth place in the final standings.

Last summer, they played in the Intertoto Cup and managed to book a UEFA Cup berth. Their hopes of progressing in this competition, however, were shattered by Portuguese heavyweights Benfica.

Marino is not a novice when it comes to assembling winning teams. He was responsible for the transfer dealings at Udinese for several years.

During his stint with the northeast club, Marino signed relatively unknown players, mostly non-Italians, and after proving themselves in the Serie A, they were transferred for significant sums of money.

Udinese went on to establish themselves among the major teams in Italy thanks to Marino's wise planning and transfer strategy. However, the job at Napoli looks even more daunting due to the huge following the club enjoy down south and their thirst for success after years of underachievement.

Walter Gargano, German Denis, Marek Hamsik, Daniele Mannini, Christian Maggio, Ezequiel Lavezzi and Fabiano Santacroce were virtually anonymous when Marino lured them to Napoli for small transfer fees.

Nowadays, the biggest clubs on the continent, including Chelsea, Real Madrid, Juventus and Inter, are all desperate to prise some of the stars away from the San Paolo.

This week, Marino was quoted as saying that Napoli's chief target should be a UEFA Cup berth. Although he was satisfied with the team's current position in the standings, he went on to state that Champions League football is still a distant dream because clubs like Fiorentina and Roma look better equipped.

Napoli need to keep their feet on the ground. Over-enthusiasm may lead to a dip in performances. The team needs to maintain its almost 100 per cent winning home record (seven wins and one draw so far).

On top of that, Napoli badly need to improve results away from home - two wins and two draws in eight games - starting from their visit to Torino on Sunday.

Serie A statistics

1st win for Sampdoria after four away defeats on the trot as last weekend the Blucerchiati scored twice after the break to beat Reggina 2-0. This was also Samp's first victory after back-to-back defeats to Cagliari 0-1 and Genoa 0-1. In an exciting match at the Olympic Stadium, Roma edged in-form Cagliari by the odd goal in five. This was Roma's fifth straight win and the fourth successive one over Cagliari in Rome. Fiorentina stayed in the hunt for a Champions League berth courtesy of a comfortable 2-0 home win over Catania. The Sicilians have now collected a single point from the last available 12.

5 penalties were awarded by the referees last weekend. Marco Bernacci and Marco Di Vaio converted one apiece in Bologna's 5-2 win over crisis-hit Torino. Marek Hamsik scored from the spot to break the deadlock for Napoli against Lecce. Veteran Claudio Bellucci's goal from a penalty put Sampdoria ahead against Reggina and Alessandro Del Piero put Juventus on their way against Milan after 16 minutes' play. Six players - Francesco Pratali (Torino), Claudio Rivalta, Gianpaolo Bellini (both Atalanta), Omar Milanetto (Genoa), Gianluca Zambrotta (Milan) and Santiago Morero (Chievo) - saw red.

6th straight away defeat (the previous five coming vs Udinese 0-2, Juventus 0-1, Sampdoria 0-1, Catania 2-3 and Siena 0-1) for Torino who threw away a 1-0 half-time lead on Saturday to suffer a heavy 5-2 setback in Bologna. With this win, Bologna extended their positive run to six games (one win and five draws). On Sunday, Palermo registered their second straight home win as they overcame Siena 2-0. This was Siena's second successive away setback following the 0-2 reverse to Napoli.

7 wins in a row saw Inter holding a firm grip at the top of the standings. On Sunday, it was all but easy against lowly Chievo as they threw away a 2-0 lead and only made sure of victory thanks to Zlatan Ibrahimovic's brace late on. For the record, Chievo's only win in seven visits to the San Siro dates back to December 15, 2001 (2-1). Chievo have now lost eight out of their last nine outings.

41 goals were scored on the 16th day: 27 coming from the hosts and the remaining 14 from the visitors, who managed only one victory. Foreigners contributed with 16 goals while there were 13 first-half goals. Total number of goals scored so far amount to 393. Marco Di Vaio notched a hat-trick in Bologna's 5-2 drubbing of Torino. Antonio Di Natale (Udinese), Carvalho Amauri (Juventus) and Zlatan Ibrahimovic (Inter) grabbed a brace each. In Bologna-Torino, two own goals were committed by Miguel Britos (Bologna) and Francesco Pratali (Torino). Marco Bernacci (Bologna) and Michele Pazienza (Napoli) came on as substitutes and scored. Three players, Milito (Genoa), Gilardino (Fiorentina) and Di Vaio (Bologna), top the scorers' list with 12 goals each.