Napoli struggling after Lisbon: Conte is considering changes for the trip to Udine.

The return trip from Lisbon, urgently required to avoid a total air traffic shutdown due to the general strike, brought a tired team back to Naples, reeling from their Champions League defeat and with an injury list that continues to impact every coaching decision. Antonio Conte, notoriously resistant to breaks, granted the team a day off, aware that the Udine match looms and that the same players are now forced to play non-stop. The restart in Castel Volturno will serve to reorganize the energies of a skeleton squad, while seven players remain unavailable and no one seems likely to return immediately, not even Lobotka and Gutierrez, the closest to recovery.

Meanwhile, the race to qualify for the Champions League playoffs weighs heavily, a mission far from simple. The Azzurri are twenty-third, second-to-last in the qualifying zone, and will face Copenhagen away and then Chelsea at the Maradona, needing at least four points to guarantee their advancement. The defeat against Benfica comes after a string of victories that had restored confidence, but with such a limited squad, a physical and mental decline seems almost inevitable.

A glimmer of hope comes from Lukaku's gradual recovery, sidelined since late July after a torn muscle sustained in Castel di Sangro. The Belgian has resumed training with the squad, and the hope is to have him ready for the Super Cup on December 18th against AC Milan in Riyadh, a fixture Conte considers crucial. First, however, comes Udinese, and the team must try to give a respite from their exhausted squad. Defensive changes are therefore looming, with Mazzocchi and Juan Jesus likely to replace Di Lorenzo, and one between Rrahmani and Buongiorno; Spinazzola could move to the left to give a respite to those who have been struggling in recent weeks; Vergara appears likely to replace McTominay, who clearly struggled against Benfica. Politano is in the running to start in place of Lang, while Conte is unlikely to do without Neres, currently one of the most promising players.

Napoli enters the match against Udinese feeling tense, both physically and psychologically, and forced to find immediate solutions to avoid losing ground in the league and in Europe. Managing energy levels is the coach's only real weapon to prevent an already challenging December from becoming explosive.