The tough, the patient and the brilliant: the secrets of Napoli

Someone has already made shoes. Aurelio De Laurentiis started from his players. Now that his team can win the first league title Naples Football Club and his presidency, the third since the club was founded. If this story were a film it could be titled “The Tough, the Patient and the Brilliant”. But the strength of the hard guy, the film producer De Laurentiis is also this: he didn’t make a great film out of his football. A project that is decidedly different from that of other clubs and one in particular, Juventus. Who to make the “series” exciting hired Cristiano Ronaldo, a King now in jaguar slippers, then the strong point of the competition Gonzalo Higuain (from Naples, in fact) finally the coach at the time least loved and most feared by the Juventus spectators and that is Maurice Sarri. A flop at the box office. So we go back to shoes, the story that certain sports agents tell. They argue: “In Napoli’s contracts, De Laurentiis also inserts the image rights which include the brand of football boots that each member must use. It is something that interferes with the choice of what is the main tool of a footballer’s profession, shoes”. The objection, for those familiar with the “wonderful” world of prosecutors, must be taken with due precautions, it is in any case legitimate, it can certainly ignite the grievances of the players’ union association and certainly has its own truth. The fact is that in the control room of Napoli they don’t give a damn and they have the right to do this too. Dictating the rules then helps in enforcing them, a detail that in a passionate environment like the Neapolitan one seems a good deterrent.

Thus we can move on to the second protagonist of the story, the Patient, an essential virtue in the world of football. He who is endowed with proverbial patience is Cristiano Giuntoli, fifty-year-old Florentine, discreet defender between Savona, Imperia and Sanremo and champion in today’s panorama of sports directors. Friendly, grumpy only in the aspect that refers to his football career, esteemed on the Italian and international scene, according to his insiders he is “the true and only architect of Napoli’s successes”. This is not the case, the merits, as already mentioned, must in the meantime be shared with the president. Because De Laurentiis is definitely present in Naples. Those who know the mechanisms of the leaders explain: “Giuntoli decides 80 per cent, for 20 the president”. Now, the proportions appear generous with regard to the role of sporting director and it is certain that De Laurentiis can exercise a sort of veto in the style of the UN security council, but it is true that Giuntoli can and knows how to do what he must. He knows how to sell and buy, with timings that seem perfect today, moving in an adequately complex situation, between image rights already mentioned and precise parameters. In this, the new Milan of the Eliott fund and De Laurentiis’ Napoli have more or less the same lines: the first club is the reigning champion, the second is trying to wring the Scudetto from his shirt. The vestments are: purchases not exceeding 20 million, age under 26, entry salary not exceeding two million. Of course, you can reach the six million that Koulibaly received, but then you can also sell the defender to Chelsea, considering that the time has come to proceed. This too is one of the extra weapons of Napoli who want to be champions again.

Because the winter of supremacy comes after a summer of turmoil, with the sale of Koulibaly, captain Lorenzo Insigne and Dries Mertens, a striker with beautiful and effective football, but ultimately useful as a convertible in the rainy Scottish countryside. “Irreplaceable”, many ruled. Replaced in a big way, because the star Khvicha Kvaratskhelia (21 years old), the South Korean Kim (26 years old), the bet (so far won) Raspadori (22 years old) and Giovanni Simeone have arrived. True, the Cholito is another convertible, but it has decidedly lower running costs and at 27 years old it is still of the latest generation. Other Italian clubs had moved for Kvaratskheila and Kim, in particular Juventus. Except that the patient Giuntoli made the right moves at the right time. And the tough De Laurentiis did what must be done: buy them at the desired price. Thus was born a team that the “Geniale” Luciano Spalletti it makes you play wonders and win over and over again. Touchy, sometimes irritable, the coach must be recognized as a genius that has disappeared from the European benches. He has ideas and repertoire. Experience that is needed to build a balanced squad with the president and sporting director. Making the players available make the most of it. Brilliance begins when one’s head is free from prejudices, Spalletti must also recognize this. It was he who won the bet to place Francesco Totti at the center of the attack. Form 4-2-3-1, the same as this Napoli. So he gave more years of football played to the unforgettable Giallorossi captain. The rest, the controversies over the end of the Roman champion’s career, are a cloud that has enveloped Spalletti, attributing to him responsibilities that he did not have. And they have become the plot of a fiction. Benedetto “cinematographer”, the furthest thing from Naples than the Hard, the Patient and the Brilliant.