Conte confident Napoli will bounce back from ´kick in the teeth´ against Lazio

Antonio Conte wants his Napoli team to learn lessons from their loss to Lazio, which he labelled as “a kick in the teeth”.

Napoli went down 2-0 at home on Saturday, leaving them 12 points behind Serie A leaders Inter with five games remaining.

Conte’s slim hopes of the Partenopei defending the Scudetto now seem to be all but over. In fact, Opta’s supercomputer hands his team a 0.0% chance of clinching the crown.

Napoli cannot yet be sure of a Champions League place, and Conte knows his team must recover quickly ahead of Friday’s clash with Cremonese, which preludes a potentially pivotal contest against Como.

“We have taken a kick to the teeth today,” he said, as reported by Football Italia.

“Now, we rest and, on Monday, we must make the most of this experience. If we don’t, it would be serious. We need to understand why and put things right.”

Full time#NapoliLazio 0-2

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— Official SSC Napoli (@en_sscnapoli) April 18, 2026

Napoli had 67% possession but, in an unusually blunt display, did not manage to get any of their 12 attempts on target, and created chances worth just 0.55 expected goals.

Lazio, meanwhile, finished with 2.27 xG and seven attempts on target, with Matteo Cancellieri and Toma Basic on target either side of Mattia Zaccagni’s penalty miss.

“This was not a good match from us, we put very little quality in midfield,” added Conte. “Lazio waited for us and hit on the counter. We had [almost] 70% possession and did not manage a single shot on target.

“We had studied the match, but we were not good enough. When this team lacks energy, quality drops. Perhaps, I was not good enough at sensing the malaise that developed.”