Captain Di Lorenzo urges Napoli to "take risks" against Liverpool

will host

at Stadio Maradona for their Champions League opener on Wednesday.

The Partenopei captain

is more than excited for their Wednesday game as it will be the first

game he captains Napoli. Playing 142 games for Napoli while contributing 8 goals and 23 assists, the 29-year-old right-back became Napoli's captain this summer after the departures of

and Kalidou Koulibaly.

Di Lorenzo told his pre-match conference:

“It’s been two years that we’ve been waiting to be involved in this competition again so I think it’s an important moment for the team and me and the fans.

“We will show a lot of desire and determination in trying to produce a good performance against a top side I am sure we’ll be able to show our qualities and cause problems for the opposition.

“I don’t have that much Champions League experience myself, but we are keen to test ourselves against a top team because we think we also fall into that category,”

he continued

.

“We didn’t have many days to prepare for this match but we all really want to go out there and show that we belong in this competition. We’ll try to play our game without any fear and mustn’t let them dictate proceedings too much.”

Unbeaten in their opening five

games of the season, Napoli is just two points behind the early fore-runner

. Meanwhile, Liverpool had a shocking start to the

season, gathering nine points in six games and suffering a defeat against their arch-rivals

at Old Trafford.

The

Napoli captain

believes his side’s attitude is crucial against a “top club” like Liverpool. He added:

“These teams can pick up on teams when you have a bit too much fear and they can ultimately squash you from an emotional perspective. We need to be brave and positive and show character.

“I think ultimately it’s 11 vs. 11, we have two legs and two arms like they do. I am sure we can show our quality and desire to be involved in the competition. I am sure we can cause them problems with the help of our fans.

“They have a lot of top players, and we’ll have to be very careful as defenders, but we defend as a unit, it starts with the front players and it goes all the way back to the goalkeeper. Liverpool like to get the ball forward as quickly as possible, but once we have the ball I think we need to try to hurt them with our quality

“You have to take risks in games like this, you need to have the courage to try things out when you have the ball, try to play our own game and show our qualities. On the other hand we know their top players can hurt you at any time, so we can’t switch off for a moment. It’s about striking the right balance and showing personality and showing what kind of top players and top team we are too.”

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