After breaking the goal drought and winning against Malaga, Dai Zhiwei ushered in his first European competition.

Although Villarreal have only played in the Europa League this season, their first opponent in the knockout stages of the Europa League is Napoli, a serious contender for the Serie A title this season.

Napoli lost 1-0 to Juventus in last week's Serie A match, and reluctantly handed over the top spot. However, Napoli were not convinced after the game, and judging by the game, manager Maurizio Sarri thought that a reasonable result would be for his team to get at least one point. Napoli's attacking heart Gonzalo Higuain had a great chance to open the scoring just before half-time, but Leonardo Bonucci's brilliant clearance left the Argentines sighing.

Gonzalo Higuain's smudge eventually made Napoli hate away from home, but the Argentine striker and even the attacking power of the entire Napoli team should not be underestimated.

After 25 Serie A games, Napoli has scored 53 goals, the only team in Serie A to score more than 50 goals, and the team's 33 goal difference is also more than Juventus.

Of those 53 goals, 24 came from Higuain, who scored nearly half of the team's goals!

In addition to Higuain, winger Insigne has also been impressive, scoring 10 goals and providing 10 assists in 24 appearances, making him the first Serie A player to post a double-double this season.

The Napoli backline, which conceded 54 goals in 38 games last season, has changed a lot this season, conceding just 20 goals in 25 games, the second-fewest goals conceded in Serie A after Juventus.

Napoli's backline has been able to perform so reinvented, which is inseparable from the consistent performance of central defender Kalidou Koulibaly.

Kalidou Koulibaly has good physical fitness, and his height of 1.95m puts him firmly in the air. What's more, he pays great attention to his position. With a strong sense of position, he keeps an eye on the distance between himself and his full-back and centre-back partner Albiol.

In addition, Kalidou Koulibaly has a strong ability to read the game and always be on the lookout for potential attacking threats. In terms of switching from defence to attack, Kalidou Koulibaly has a good ability to play long balls from 40 to 50 yards to the two wingers, Callejon and Insigne. In a Napoli team that mainly focuses on short passes, Koulibaly's precise long passes enrich the team's attacking tools.

Villarreal and Napoli have met 4 times before, all in 2011, with the Submarine only 1 win, 1 draw and 2 defeats, and the last 2 meetings have been beaten 2-0 by Napoli 2-0 home and away.

There is not much difference in the odds between the two teams in this game, but Napoli are the title contenders in the league, and the submarine obviously does not have the strength to challenge the top three, and in terms of form, Napoli have a better record.

The two sides announced their starting line-up the day before the game, with Dai Zhiwei, who has been in fine form of late, undoubtedly taking over Villarreal's starting attack, while his attacking partner is veteran Soldado.

Napoli predicted starters: Reina; Strinic, Kiriches, Hai Sai, Kalibaly; Hamsik, Valdi Fiori, López; Higuain, Gabidini, Mertens

Villarreal line-up: Areola; Musacchio, Costa, Gaspar, Ruiz; Trigueros, Bruno, Suarez, dos Santos; Dai Zhiwei, Soldado

The game is about to start, the players of the two teams began to enter the field, and the love song stadium at the game site was drizzling, but it did not affect the progress of the game.

Dai Zhiwei, who was walking out of the tunnel, had been watching Higuain in front of him, the second world-class striker he had seen up close so far – the first being Suarez, who had played in the Club World Cup.

"Maybe I'm not as strong as him right now, but it won't be too long!" Dai Zhiwei clenched his fists and cheered himself up.

Dai Zhiwei's current value is 87, and he estimates that Higuain's value is about the same value, and now his ability is not much worse than Higuain, and the biggest gap is in terms of experience.

The game started and Napoli controlled the game with an inverted pass from the back after kick-off.

However, Napoli are not the kind of team that Barcelona are in possession of the extreme, and after a mistake by Valdi Fiori, Dos Santos cut off a pass at the back.

Villarreal organised the attack, Dos Santos passed the ball from the right to the left, Trigueros won the ball and entered the box, but Reina came out to get the ball in time.

After that, Villarreal, who was sitting at home, launched an offensive again, Costa made a long pass to the opponent's penalty area at the back, and Dai Zhiwei won the ball but the linesman raised the flag and was blown offside.

"The Serie A team is really good at defensive awareness!" Dai Zhiwei gave a thumbs up to his teammates, this time he was just one step ahead of the offside, but it was this step that showed the defensive skills of the Serie A team.

This is also the first time Dai Zhiwei has played against a team in Serie A!

Napoli then also found Higuain through a long pass, but the latter did not reach the ball, and the ball was directly received by Areola.

Both teams were more cautious after the opening, mostly some tentative attacks, after all, this kind of knockout game with goal counting cannot tolerate too many mistakes.

Bruno won the ball in midfield and set up a counter-attack, but the Villarreal captain's pass was wrong, the ball went out of the touchline, and then Higuain returned to his own side near the baseline to receive the touchline, but the Argentine striker's dribble was snatched back by Bruno to atone for his guilt.

Villarreal was brewing down the left and Triguros' cross was denied by Napoli right-back Kalidou Koulibaly.

Subsequently, dos Santos took a tactical corner, the football was passed to the penalty area to cause chaos, Suarez on the periphery of the penalty area got the football that was taken advantage of by the penalty area I don't know which player, and did not wait for the football to land, and it was a volley to keep up, but unfortunately the football hit the body of the teammates in the penalty area, and unfortunately rebounded out of the bottom line.

But Suarez's strike also brought Napoli manager Maurizio Sarri up from the dugout for the first time, and it was clear that he was unhappy with the team's protection of the edge of the box.

"Yo, it's this old boy!" Dai Zhiwei's impression of Maurizio Sarri almost always comes from his later memories when he was in charge of Chelsea, and he really didn't know that he had ever managed Napoli.

The Yellow Submarine sent a long pass to the penalty area again, and in this game, they were slightly inferior in the battle with the Napoli midfield, and could only frequently find Dai Zhiwei and Soldado in the front line through long passes in the second half.

However, the effect of the long ball in the half was not good, and this time Soldado was fouled by the referee for pushing Kirichesz, and lost another chance to attack, giving up control of the ball.

Napoli's attack will be more effective, and they will be able to play more to their strengths on the pitch with a counter-attacking focus.

Hamsik won the ball on the right and played an accurate pass to Higuain at the edge of the box, who played the ball to Gabbiadini, but the latter couldn't stop it and Gaspar went straight up to get the ball.

Villarreal then advanced to the edge of the opposition penalty area, and Dai Zhiwei finally got the opportunity this time, and his long-range shot on the edge of the box line did not completely shake off Strinic, but it was also the closest the two teams came to scoring so far in the first half, and Napoli goalkeeper Reyna almost broke out in a cold sweat.

Although he didn't break through the opponent's goal, Dai Zhiwei was still in a good mood, at least the shot just now proved that his foot wind was still very smooth today, maybe the next chance to shoot was the time to break the goal.

Napoli saw Villarreal's attack start to pick up, and even though it was an away game, they were not to be outdone. Gabbiadini tried to break through on the left, but the ball went out of the sideline under the opponent's interception, and then it was Gabbiabini's left side that sent a pass, but the power was too great, and the ball was too close to the goal and went directly into Areola's arms.

'Bruno played the ball down the left side but made another mistake. It seems that Bruno is not in good shape today. After the opening ten minutes of intense play, the Spanish commentator who sat in the commentary seat also relieved his strength and began to talk about the first ten minutes of the game.

"Well, the midfielders of both sides fought fiercely, but it was precisely because of Bruno's poor form today that the yellow submarine midfield, which was already a little worse than Napoli's midfield, was unbalanced, so that they could only send long passes frequently in the half after winning the ball, but they were almost intercepted by Napoli's headers." The partner commentator also said affirmatively.

Just as the two commentators were commenting on the game, Villarreal attacked again on the left, Trigueros passed to Musacchio, who came up with the assist, Koulibaly had no choice but to bring him down and receive a yellow card, while Villarreal also won a free-kick on the left side of the field.

The free-kick was not given to Bruno, the captain of the Yellow Submarines, who was in average form in this game, and there is still a "cannon" in the Villarreal team.

After a simple combination, Triguros took a long shot, but the angle was too good to be saved by Reina, but Reyna was also shocked by Trigeros's heavy bombardment of the goal, and his hands were a little numb.

"It's a pity, the points difference is a bit much!" Dai Zhiwei shook his head and sighed after seeing Triguros's direct free kick being held by Reina.

Villarreal don't have a top free-kick player in the team, and if Dai Zhiwei can redeem any free-kick skill in the system, he can top out Trigueros and become the team's first penalty taker.

It's a pity that Dai Zhiwei's most eye-catching curve shot costs 50 points, which is not a small number.

"It's a long way to go, so I'll continue to save points! Poor! ”