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The weird is going to get weirder.
And there’s a very real possibility that there’s not even a game played at Allianz Stadium on Sunday night.
As announced by Lega Serie A a short time ago, Juventus’ Sunday showdown with Napoli will go forward as planned, which is a sign that the latter either had a bid to postpone the match rejected by the league or they have been unable to prove just yet that they’re unable to travel due to local health measures in southern Italy. The result of the statement is that there will be at least one team on the field before the 8:45 p.m. local time kickoff time that is scheduled. But Napoli — who has been fighting to have the game postponed due to a second player testing positive for COVID-19 on Saturday and fears of spreading the virus further much like last weekend in Genoa — looks like they haven’t made the trip north to Turin and will be handed a forfeit.
The statement from Serie A is as follows:
“The Lega Serie A confirms that the game Juventus v Napoli for Serie A Week 3 is still planned to kick off on October 4 at 20.45.”
As it stands now and the expected becomes a reality, Juventus will be awarded a 3-0 forfeit win due to the fact that Napoli didn’t show up at Allianz Stadium.
The only thing — and I repeat, the ONLY thing — we’ve heard from Napoli ever since Saturday afternoon is that reports of manager Rino Gattuso being infected with COVID-19 are false.
Si comunica che la notizia riguardo la positività di mister Gattuso al Covid-19 è priva di qualsiasi fondamento. Il gruppo squadra effettuerà i prossimi tamponi nella giornata di domani.
— Official SSC Napoli (@sscnapoli) October 4, 2020
That’s it. In terms of official club statements or updates on what is going on from the Napoli end of things, it’s been very, very quiet. You don’t want to read too much into it, but you can pretty much figure out what’s going on since the usual things that are released to the general public during the 24 hours or so before a match haven’t been released.
Juventus, on the other hand, have posted their usual tweet saying that it’s game day. They followed that up with the usual match day squad post. Andrea Pirlo had the squad go through a match day training session as per usual at Continassa. This is all acting like all is fine and everything is going to plan like there’s a game later that night.
But, as we know, this is far from normal and there’s a very real possibility that when Juventus takes the field Sunday night, there will be no opposing team there to greet them.