Emotional Lukaku scores last-gasp Napoli winner
An emotional Romelu Lukaku scored his first goal of the season to seal a last-gasp 2-1 victory for Napoli at Verona.
Lukaku, who missed the first four months of the season with a thigh injury, pounced in the 96th minute to stop Napoli dropping valuable points at Stadio Marc'Antonio Bentegodi.
Having missed much of the season through a serious thigh injury, Lukaku scored his first Serie A goal since converting against Cagliari on May 23, 2025.
The gap of 281 days between league goals is the longest in his career in the top-five European leagues.
Napoli needed just two minutes to get in front. Antonio Vergara helped Matteo Politano's cross on to Rasmus Hojlund, who looped a lovely header across goal and in off the post.
Eljif Elmas forced Lorenzo Montipo into action with a powerful drive midway through the first half and Hojlund would have had a second had Andrias Edmundsson not made an important clearance after the Denmark international rounded the Verona goalkeeper.
Napoli was furious when Verona drew level in the 64th minute. Alessandro Buongiorno felt he was fouled by Kieron Bowie before putting the ball behind, but a corner was awarded and it sat up nicely for Jean-Daniel Akpa Akpro to lash past Alex Meret, with a touch off Hojlund.
Antonio Conte was shown a yellow card as his frustrations grew and Verona pushed for a winner, which it nearly managed when Meret missed a cross at the back post, but Bowie could not turn it home.
Lukaku made Verona pay for that missed chance when he drilled Giovane Simeone's deflected cross past Montipo to keep Napoli's UEFA Champions League qualification hopes on track.
Conte, though, has warned his side there are no guarantees after watching this late show at Verona.
"This is a season that I will carry with me, because it is teaching me so much about how to deal with situations I’d never experienced before," Conte said.
"This experience is improving me in so many ways. Dealing with all these situations is not at all easy. I feel that it is making me a better coach.
"We find a way to stay on our feet and find the right way through, not just on a football level, but as human beings too.
"It’s going to be a tough fight, we know that, because other teams are in better situations, while we are trying to get players back in shape.
"We know that we genuinely risk missing out on Europe entirely, we are scraping the bottom of the barrel here. We did well to take the points home today, knowing that we can play much better than this."
Napoli faces Torino and Lecce in its next two Serie A games, both at home, with Conte's side needing to strengthen its place in the top-four race or risk missing out on qualification for Europe.
