MATCH FACTS
Napoli and Liverpool will meet in the group stages for a third time in the last five seasons. The Italian club won their home game against the Reds in both 2018-19 (1-0) and 2019-20 (2-0).
Napoli have won five of their six Champions League home games against clubs from the Premier League, losing the other 2-4 to Manchester City in November 2017. Both of their last two such matches have been victories against Liverpool (October 2018, September 2019).
Liverpool have won each of their last three away games against Italian sides in European competition; they had only won three of their first 14 such visits beforehand (D3 L8).
This will be Napoli’s seventh season in Europe’s top competition and first since 2019-20. The Azzurri have lost just one of their last 12 group-stage games in the competition (W5 D6), although that was to Liverpool in December 2018 (0-1).
Liverpool won all six of their group-stage games in last season’s Champions League. No English club has ever won seven consecutive group games in the competition’s history.
Liverpool won all six of their away games in last season’s competition, scoring two-plus goals each time. In the tournament’s history, only two sides have had longer away winning runs: Ajax (who had seven in March 1997) and Bayern Munich (seven in February 2014).
Napoli have only lost their first match in a tournament season in one of their six previous campaigns in the competition (W3 D2), a 1-2 defeat to Shakhtar Donetsk in 2017-18.
Liverpool have only lost their opening match of a Champions League season in one of their last 12 appearances in the competition (W8 D3) – that defeat was, however, away at Napoli in 2019-20 (0-2).
Napoli will be Luciano Spalletti’s fourth club managed in this competition, after Roma, Zenit St Petersburg and Inter Milan.
He will be the fifth manager to take charge of at least three different Italian sides in the tournament, after Carlo Ancelotti (Parma, Juventus, Milan, Napoli), Alberto Zaccheroni (Milan, Lazio, Inter), Fabio Capello (AC Milan, Roma, Juventus) and Claudio Ranieri (Juventus, Roma, Inter Milan).
Mo Salah scored seven goals in last season’s competition group stage for Liverpool; only Ruud van Nistelrooy for Manchester United in 2004-05 (eight) has ever scored more in a single group stage for an English club in the tournament. The Liverpool attacker also has 11 competition assists for the Reds, just one shy of the club’s all-time record (12 by Steven Gerrard and James Milner).