Antonio Conte meets his former side on Wednesday in Naples. We look ahead to this UEFA Champions League clash with our Napoli vs Chelsea prediction and preview.
Napoli vs Chelsea: The Key Stats
Chelsea claimed all three points in 40.5% of pre-match simulations run by the Opta supercomputer, but Napoli still have a 33.8% chance of victory.
Napoli have won just one of their last 10 Champions League matches against sides from one of Europe’s top five leagues.
Chelsea are on their longest scoring run in major European competition (20 games).
A frenetic finale awaits in the UEFA Champions League as Chelsea will hope to cling onto a top-eight spot when they visit Napoli – and former boss Antonio Conte – on Wednesday.
Knowing only the top eight in the Champions League qualify automatically for the last-16 stage, Chelsea are among an eight-team pack on 13 points. They sit eighth, marginally ahead of five sides on goal difference but behind Newcastle United and Paris Saint-Germain, who face each other.
Liam Rosenior’s side head into the final league-phase matchday full of confidence, having won three straight games across all competitions. Estêvão and João Pedro were on target, along with an Enzo Fernández penalty, in a 3-1 win over Crystal Palace last time out in the Premier League.
Rosenior’s first taste of Champions League football ended in a narrow 1-0 win over Pafos at Stamford Bridge. Moisés Caicedo’s second-half winner proved the difference, but his influence on the ball appears just as important.
The Ecuadorian midfielder has made more line-breaking passes (49) than any other Chelsea player in the Champions League this season, as well as having the highest pass completion rate (90.1%) under high-intensity pressure among teammates with at least 90 minutes played.
Moisés Caicedo Line-Breaking Passes
Caicedo’s dominance on the ball is clearly central to Rosenior’s playing style, with Chelsea completing 94.5% of their passes against Pafos. That marked the highest completion rate by a team in this season’s competition. By contrast, the Blues’ pass completion rate when managed by Conte in the Champions League was 84.2%.
Goals have proved no problem either for Chelsea, who have found the net in each of their last 20 games in major European competitions. That is the longest run in the club’s history, aided by last season’s UEFA Conference League triumph, with Real Madrid the last side to keep a clean sheet against them in April 2023.
Conte led Chelsea to the 2016-17 Premier League title in his first season in charge before overseeing FA Cup glory the next campaign, but he may not fancy his chances against his former side. He has won just one of five games against Chelsea since leaving (D1 L3).
The Italian’s sole victory did, at least, come in his most recent meeting with his old employers. Conte oversaw a 2-0 Premier League win in February 2023 against the Blues when managing London rivals Tottenham.
Conte will need to get another one over his former club, with Napoli sitting 25th in the 36-team table, and just a place adrift of qualifying for the knockout-stage playoffs. They are on eight points, behind PSV, Athletic Club and Olympiakos on goal difference.
Champions League Table before Final Matchday 2025-26
However, victory could see them hunt down as many as five teams – Borussia Dortmund excluded due to an unlikely nine-goal swing required – further up the standings. The Stadio Diego Armando Maradona may also be Napoli’s best hope of securing a much-needed win.
Napoli have lost just one of their last 20 home Champions League matches (W12 D7), a 3-2 defeat to Real Madrid in October 2023. They have lost just 12% of their home games overall (4/33), the third lowest ratio of any team to play 20+ such matches in the competition since 1992-93.
But winning on Wednesday is far from guaranteed. Napoli have claimed all three points in just one of their last 10 Champions League matches against sides from one of Europe’s big five leagues (D4 L5), a 1-0 away win at Union Berlin in October 2023.
If they are to get anything here, Conte will likely look to Scott McTominay, who has scored four goals in his last five appearances in the competition. The last Scottish player to score five goals in a single European Cup/Champions League season was Mo Johnston in 1990-91 for Rangers, and last for a non-Scottish club was John Wark for Liverpool in 1984-85.
In fact, all six goals scored by Napoli players in this season’s edition have been shared by Manchester United duo Rasmus Højlund (2) and McTominay (4). Højlund has never scored against Chelsea in four appearances, but McTominay’s brace on his last start against the Blues in December 2023 helped Man Utd to a 2-1 win.
Kevin De Bruyne will miss the clash against his former side due to a longer-term hamstring issue. Billy Gilmour, Matteo Politano and Amir Rrahmani will also be absent after missing Sunday’s 3-0 defeat to Juventus in Serie A that left Napoli fourth in the table.
As for Rosenior’s team news, Levi Colwill, Tosin Adarabioyo and Roméo Lavia all remain sidelined. Cole Palmer again sat out of the Palace win and remains a doubt due to ongoing concerns over his thigh injury.
Napoli vs Chelsea Head-to-Head
This pair have only ever met twice in the Champions League, with Chelsea progressing 5-4 on aggregate across two thrilling round-of-16 legs in 2011-12.
Napoli managed a 3-1 home victory before losing 4-1 at Stamford Bridge in the second leg. Chelsea would go on to win their first Champions League crown that season, beating Bayern Munich on penalties in the final under caretaker manager Roberto Di Matteo.
Although that campaign may bring back fond memories, Chelsea’s record in Italy does not. They have only won one of their last nine Champions League away games against Italian sides (D1 L7).
A 2-0 victory away to Milan in October 2022 represents their only such success in that run, while they lost their most recent trip to Italy 2-1 against Atalanta on MD6 under Enzo Maresca.
Napoli vs Chelsea Prediction
The Opta supercomputer struggled to pick a favourite between these two sides, though Chelsea narrowly came out on top in 10,000 pre-match simulations.
Rosenior’s side claimed all three points in 40.5% of the data-led sims, but Napoli still boast a 33.8% chance of victory at home. The draw accounted for 25.7% of scenarios.
Napoli vs Chelsea Prediction UCL
Napoli vs Chelsea Predicted Lineups
Napoli: Nikita Contini, Giovanni Di Lorenzo, Alessandro Buongiorno, Juan Jesus, Miguel Gutiérrez, Stanislav Lobotka, Scott McTominay, Mathías Olivera, Antonio Vergara, Eljif Elmas, Rasmus Højlund.
Head coach: Antonio Conte
Chelsea: Robert Sánchez, Malo Gusto, Trevoh Chalobah, Benoît Badiashile, Marc Cucurella, Reece James, Moisés Caicedo, Pedro Neto, Enzo Fernández, Alejandro Garnacho, João Pedro.
Head coach: Liam Rosenior
Opta Power Rankings
The Opta Power Rankings are a global team ranking system. They assign an ability score to over 15,000 domestic football teams. This score is on a scale between zero and 100, where zero is the worst-ranked team in the world and 100 is the best team in the world.
Ahead of kick-off this week, here is the Opta Power Ranking for both sides.
UEFA Champions League Stats Opta
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