Mediaboss Marketing

Nice manager Lucien Favre explains the club's decision to rest Wesley Sneijder and Mario Balotelli against Napoli in the UCL.

Napoli coach Maurizio Sarri has called on his club to do the city proud and prove they belong in the Champions League by beating Nice to reach the group stage.

The Azzurri face Nice, who will be without Mario Balotelli for Wednesday night's clash at the Stadio San Paolo due to injury, for a place in the lucrative group stage of European football's elite competition.

It is a game which could make or break Napoli's season before the first round of Serie A matches are played next weekend, and Sarri wants his team to prove their march to the quarterfinals last year was no fluke.

"We need to get through -- we are representing a city worthy of the Champions League and we want to get them in there," Sarri said at a news conference on Tuesday.

The manager simultaneously warned how hard it is going to be for his side to buck a worrying trend for Italian clubs of falling at the playoff hurdle.

Since Inter became the last Italian club to win the Champions League in 2010, only AC Milan in 2013 have succeeded in reaching the group stage via an August fixture, which Sarri says Italian clubs simply are not ready for.

"Our condition is decent, or as decent as it can be for an Italian side at this stage of the year," Sarri said. "Facts show that it's a difficult moment for us Italian clubs, and now we got drawn against a strong team -- one who beat Ajax -- who were in the Europa League final just a few months ago. This is an extremely difficult game for us, especially given the time of the year.

"We are not yet up to speed and we are already a side who tend to concede something, and this is a knockout game so we've got to be careful that we don't give anything away in this game."

If Napoli succeed where Sampdoria, Udinese, Roma, Lazio and even they have failed over the past seven years, they will earn another shot at measuring up to some of Europe's top clubs, having shown last year that they are no gatecrashers when it comes to the Champions League.

"Last year, both in the league and the Champions League, we proved we are a great team," said Lorenzo Insigne. "We've continued to work on the errors we made. We were beaten by Real Madrid, but I think we played a great game and showed we can hold our own at these levels.

"Now we want to prove again that we deserve to be in the Champions League."

Nice coach Lucien Favre is no stranger to the Champions League either, although he will be looking to improve on his last taste of the competition, with Borussia Monchengladbach just two years ago.

He surprised many by guiding the Foals into the group stage by virtue of finishing third in the Bundesliga in 2014-15 and he is hoping to spring another surprise having already upset Ajax in the third qualifying round.

He says his team will have to do even better than they did against their Dutch rivals if they are to send the Italians out, however.

"This game is going to be particularly hard against a great team who are much stronger than Ajax," he said in Naples. "We've watched a lot of their games and seen how they keep possession and how quick they are. It's not going to be easy."

Favre will be without summer signing Wesley Sneijder, in addition to Balotelli, who is not 100 percent fit.

"We don't want to take any risks on Mario," Favre said. "I'm worried he might suffer a setback, while Sneijder's not done all of preseason and still needs to work individually. Sadly they are both unavailable."

Both missed Nice's 2-1 defeat at home to Troyes at the weekend, as the Cote d'Azur side lost their second Ligue 1 fixture from the opening two games of the French league season.

Ben Gladwell reports on Serie A, the Italian national team and the Bundesliga for ESPN FC, UEFA and the Press Association. @UEFAcomBenG.

Link:
Napoli coach Maurizio Sarri calls on team to show they belong in UCL - ESPN FC