Rowe's 91st-minute acrobatic finish hands Bologna a 3-2 win at the Maradona
Bologna walked out of the Stadio Diego Armando Maradona on Monday night with the kind of win that does not happen in Naples often. Jonathan Rowe came off the bench, met a parried shot with an acrobatic finish in the 91st minute and sent the visitors home with a 3-2 win over a Napoli side that surrendered its title to Inter at the start of the month.
For the defending champions, this was only their second home defeat of the Serie A season. For Bologna, it was three points that nudged Vincenzo Italiano's group up to eighth and kept the European conversation alive with two rounds left to play.
Bologna's fast start, Napoli's quick reply
The away side took control inside the first ten minutes. Federico Bernardeschi rifled a finish into the roof of the net to make it 1-0 in the ninth. Eleven minutes before half-time, Riccardo Orsolini doubled the lead from the penalty spot after a clumsy challenge in the area, and the away end at the Maradona started to believe.
Napoli responded in the way good sides tend to. Giovanni Di Lorenzo pulled one back in first-half stoppage time to keep them in it heading into the break. Three minutes after the restart, Alisson Santos slotted home from a Rasmus Hojlund layoff to level the match at 2-2.
The Rowe moment
The middle of the second half was the kind of grind both managers expected from a Serie A Monday-nighter. Napoli pushed forward looking for the third, Bologna held shape and probed on the counter, and the game settled into chances at both ends without anyone finishing them.
The decisive moment fell in the first minute of stoppage time. Juan Miranda, the Bologna left-back, fired a shot that Napoli keeper Vanja Milinkovic-Savic could only parry into the air. Rowe, on as a substitute, threw himself at it and converted with an acrobatic finish to send the away bench tumbling onto the pitch.
Where it leaves both sides
For Napoli, who watched Inter clinch the Scudetto at the start of the month and now have two games left to play out, the result is a reminder that this season's slow fade has cost them more than the trophy. They have lost twice at home in a stadium they used to make impregnable.
Bologna head into the closing weekend in eighth, still in the European conversation through the league table, and Italiano has built a side that knows how to win on the road. This one, in front of a Naples crowd that struggled to believe what they had just seen, will linger long after the season ends.
Cricket Updates
