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Tag: Napoli

  • AC Milan And Napoli Show The Difference In Squad Depth

    AC Milan And Napoli Show The Difference In Squad Depth

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    That sound you hear is Milan’s title defence slowly slipping away, slowly losing its grip, and we’re only three months into the season.

    The 0-0 draw against Cremonese at the Stadio Giovanni Zini has done little to calm nerves at Milanello that a Scudetto that took them 11 years to regain is already heading towards the south and into the hands of Napoli.

    Stefano Pioli named an experimental side against Cremonese, which was more due to necessity than due to squad rotation. They were starts for Malick Thiaw – making his Milan debut – and Divock Origi, meanwhile Fode Ballo-Toure also started on the left due to Theo Hernandez being suspended.

    The result was a severely disjointed performance in which they created precious little, and the chances that were carved out wasted, primarily by Origi and Ante Rebic. Credit must also be given to Cremonese stopper Marco Carnesecchi, who was equal to everything thrown at him by the Rossoneri. Carnesecchi was handed a 7/10 rating from La Gazzetta dello Sport, and deservedly so.

    As the game ticked down to its final minutes, Pioli flexed his muscles and brought on Rafael Leao and Charles De Ketelaere in a bid to secure all three points, but the pair of them did little in a creative sense, the latter especially has really struggled since arriving in Serie A and has shown little of the form that propelled Milan to splash out €35m last summer in order to secure his signature from Club Brugge. De Ketelaere hasn’t scored a single goal and has only produced one assist since joining Milan and, in light of his recent form, was benched for the fifth consecutive game by Pioli.

    The 21-year-old is clearly adapting to the rigours of the Italian game and the step up in quality, but he’s looked remarkably lightweight in games and had been guilty of making the wrong choice when in possession of the ball a litany of times.

    “I still foresee ups and downs, it’s normal for such a young player who has changed environment and his way of working,” said Pioli about the Belgian. “Charles has quality, talent, intelligence and availability. His growth will come but when is difficult to say. I’m absolutely convinced of his qualities.”

    Milan’s evening of disappointment was only exacerbated by Napoli’s win against Empoli hours before. Luciano Spalletti’s side left it very late to pick up all three points and keep their runaway locomotive at full speed, but goals from Hirving Lozano and Piotr Zielinski secured a 10th straight win for Napoli, and put them eight points clear of Milan at the top of the table.

    And these two games have highlighted the difference in both sides. Spalletti made five changes from the win against Atalanta in Bergamo last weekend for the Empoli game, and yet the end result was the same: a Napoli win.

    And herein lies the difference in the quality of the squads. Spalletti can interchange the likes of Lozano, Matteo Politano, Elif Elmas, Giacomo Raspadori and Khvicha Kvaratskhelia on the wings and not lose quality; Giovanni Simeone has amply filled in for Victor Osimhen when the Nigerian was out for several weeks earlier in the season; Mario Rui and summer signing Mathías Olivera have traded places all season without a dip in quality, and Spalletti can also change things up in midfield, with Tanguy Ndombele can come in for one of the mainstays in Franck-Andre Anguissa, Stanislav Lobotka or Zielinski, like he did against Empoli.

    Spalletti simply has the kind of options that Pioli doesn’t, and this will make a huge difference in the second half of the season as European football kicks into gear again in mid-February.

    Milan’s title win last season was built on the strength of having no European football post-Christmas, leaving Pioli having to only focus on one game per-week. Milan effectively have a very good 13-14 players, but beyond that they struggle. Take one or two links out of the chain and they aren’t the same team.

    The same cannot be said for Napoli.

    With a third of the season gone, and only a single game left before the World Cup break, Napoli are slaying all. But we’ve been here before with Spalletti, yet with Milan already eight points behind, and Juventus and Inter even further back, Napoli will likely never have a better time to win a third Scudetto.

    And when it comes down to it, when the history on this season is written, it’ll likely come down to the depth of their squad, and Milan simply cannot compete on that score.

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    Emmet Gates, Contributor

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  • Napoli’s Stanislav Lobotka, Serie A’s Own Andres Iniesta

    Napoli’s Stanislav Lobotka, Serie A’s Own Andres Iniesta

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    In case you hadn’t noticed, Napoli are pretty good lately. Luciano Spalletti’s side are currently the talk of Europe, as they sit 1st in Serie A and 1st in their Champions League group, undefeated and carving teams apart seemingly at will.

    This wasn’t what many expected in the summer with the departure of big players. Kalidou Koulibaly, Dries Mertens, Lorenzo Insigne and Fabian Ruiz all left Naples after years of brilliant service. There was a sense that Napoli president Aurelio De Laurentiis was scaling back on ambition following another missed opportunity to win the Scudetto last season.

    And yet, Napoli look much the better side for those departures. Kim-Min Jae has aptly replaced Koulibaly in the heart of the defence and Khvicha Kvaratskhelia has already made Neapolitans forget all about Insigne.

    The goals are coming from everywhere, with 14 different players getting on the score sheet. But the real strength of this Napoli side rests in midfield, and in particular the diminutive-but-stocky frame of Stanislav Lobotka.

    Lobotka’s elevation to Napoli focal point is down to Spalletti. The Slovak was signed in January 2020, under the advice of club legend Marek Hamsik, but found it difficult to break into the first team. Ruiz, Piotr Zielinski, Tiemoue Bakayoko and Diego Demme, who signed along with Lobotka, were all preferred choices for then-coach Rino Gattuso in a 4-2-3-1 system.

    By his own admission, things looked so bad for Lobotka by the end of the 2020/21 season that he was considering leaving Napoli, 18 months after the club spent €24m on him. But fate intervened in two ways.

    Firstly, Spalletti took over from Gattuso in the summer of 2021 and everything changed for Lobotka. Spalletti was an admirer of Lobotka’s and had wanted him when he was manager of Inter. Injuries kept him ruled out for the first portion of Spalletti’s first season in Naples, but upon returning in late November, Lobotka has been an almost ever-present in Spalletti’s 4-3-3.

    The other turning point came when he suffered from tonsillitis just before Gattuso’s departure. He had to undergo two throat operations and was subsequently forced to eat little. The result was Lobotka losing nine kilograms in weight and by the time he returned, he was a different player, his pace noticeably quicker. Many had labelled him as ‘fat’, but since the beginning of last season all Lobotka’s been doing is making critics eat their words.

    Lobotka’s greatest attribute is his low centre of gravity and willingness to receive and pass the ball. It can often be missed on camera, but Lobotka’s always searching for the tiniest of spaces to operate in, always open to having the ball and manipulating space to gain the advantage.

    Lobotka possesses that Andres Iniesta-like quality of being able to spin in either direction while facing his own goal. Now, not for a moment is Lobotka in the Iniesta bracket of player, but there are semblances of the great Spaniard in him, something even Spalletti remarked after the opening day 5-2 win away at Verona.

    His stocky build also makes it difficult for the opposing players to push Lobotka off the ball, and in many respects he’s also reminiscent of the hugely under-appreciated Chilean David Pizarro, who Spalletti had at Udinese and then in his first spell at Roma in the late 2000s. Lobotka, Iniesta and Pizarro aren’t the kind of players to win awards, but they are players’ players and pivotal to a team’s success.

    Fabio Capello, a man famously difficult to please, is a big fan of the Slovakian, believing there isn’t “anyone in Serie A like him” and calling him the most complete midfielder in his role in the league. Former Lazio goalkeeper Luca Marchegiani likened him to Andrea Pirlo and Marco Verratti.

    The trio of Lobotka, Andre-Frank Anguissa and Zielinski comprise the best midfield in Serie A, each compliment each other and possess characteristics the others lack. Yet it’s Lobotka who knits it together at the base of the midfield, a regista who loves having the ball at his feet. No other midfielder in Serie A has a higher percentage of accurate passes than Lobotka, with 94%.

    Ruiz’s departure to Paris Saint-Germain last summer effectively gave Lobotka the keys to the midfield kingdom, and where Ruiz was technically exquisite but laboured on the ball, Lobotka matches him for technique but moves the ball faster, playing one or two-touch with Anguissa and Zielinski in the middle or full-backs Giovanni Di Lorenzo and Mario Rui. Napoli are a much more dynamic side in Spalletti’s second season without Ruiz, and also Insigne, to slow things down. Moreover, and most importantly, Lobotka has the aggression to press, another thing Ruiz lacks. Against Verona, for example, Lobotka recovered 13 balls.

    His form hasn’t gone unnoticed either. Reports from Italy have linked him with a move to the Premier
    PINC
     League, with Liverpool, Chelsea and Man United all reportedly interested. Yet it seems that Napoli will tie Lobotka down with a new deal.

    The turnaround in Lobotka’s fortune, from spare part to outstanding player, has been extraordinary, and it would be little exaggeration to say Napoli aren’t the same side without him.

    Nearly three years after recommending him, Hamsik’s faith in Lobotka has been wholly justified, Serie A’s own little Iniesta.

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    Emmet Gates, Contributor

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  • Can other clubs follow Napoli’s brilliant example of how to reload?

    Can other clubs follow Napoli’s brilliant example of how to reload?

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    There are only four clubs from Europe’s Big Five Leagues who play in the Champions League and are undefeated both domestically and in Europe this season. Three of them are legitimate super clubs: Manchester City, winners of four of the past five Premier Leagues, Paris Saint-Germain, also winners of four of the last five domestic titles and Real Madrid, the reigning European and LaLiga champions.

    The fourth is Napoli, who have only three Italian Cup trophies to show for the past 30 years … yet here they are. They’re top of Serie A and perfect in their Champions League group (three wins from three games, the latest being a 6-1 away hammering of Ajax), with 31 goals scored in 11 games across the two competitions.

    Here’s the incredible part: They are doing this after a summer in which they cut their wage bill by 30% and made a €13 million ($12.8m) profit in the transfer window. A summer that saw them say goodbye to exactly the sort of players that, according to conventional wisdom, are the key to success in sports. You know, the type that ex-pros turned pundits love to talk about: talented, experienced leaders who have a real connection to the club and the fan base.

    – Stream on ESPN+: LaLiga, Bundesliga, MLS, more (U.S.)

    Lorenzo Insigne, the Napoli-born, bred and buttered forward that came through the youth ranks and had been a fixture for the past 10 years, was allowed to leave via free agency. Kalidou Koulibaly, the club’s spiritual leader, defensive mainstay and one of the best in the world at his position, joined Chelsea after eight seasons. The hugely popular Dries Mertens — the club’s all-time leading scorer in Serie A — was also allowed to move on, joining Galatasaray, while Fabian Ruiz, the elegant midfield playmaker, went to PSG.

    In all of the above cases, money was a factor. The first three were the wrong side of 30 years old while Ruiz was 26, but had just one year left on his contract (like Koulibaly) and the club felt they couldn’t afford to lock him in to a longer contract. And so, they took it on the chin.

    When clubs do this, you think “reset button” and “rebuilding season.” They finished third last year, after all, and it was hard to see them making the Champions League again — especially with a sector of the often-agitated fan base angry with president Aurelio De Laurentiis for effectively gutting their team in an effort to save money. And even more so when, in early September, their most gifted remaining player, Victor Osimhen, went down injured (he hasn’t returned to action yet).

    Instead, their results thus far have shown they are masters of the “reload.”

    For clubs outside the top dozen or so — basically, the deep-pocketed one-percenters like Real Madrid, PSG or Manchester City — reloading is pretty much the Holy Grail. It’s different from rebuilding because when you rebuild, you accept you won’t be as competitive in the short-term because you are going in a new direction, usually with a new manager and/or younger players.

    Reloading, however, is predicated on the fact that you need to replace the guys you lost without suffering in terms of results. Why? Because if your results deteriorate, so does — in many cases — your revenue. And then you get stuck in a vicious cycle.

    Reloading was what Napoli’s opponent Tuesday night were hoping to do, too. In the summer, Ajax lost Antony and Lisandro Martinez to Manchester United, Sebastian Haller to Borussia Dortmund, Ryan Gravenberch and Noussair Mazraoui to Bayern Munich, Perr Schuurs to Torino and Nicolas Tagliafico to Lyon (among players who made at least 22 league appearances). They spent more than €100m on replacements to stay competitive, win the Dutch league and try to make some inroads in Europe. (They’re second in the Eredivisie, but after Tuesday’s result they face an uphill task in reaching the Champions League knockout stage, which in turn would mean less revenue next season and less of a chance to hang on to their remaining prized players like Jurrien Timber and Mohamed Kudus.)

    This is the reality facing Europe’s upper middle class and, to some degree, teams just outside the Big Six in England. In Napoli’s case, however, their approach has been hugely effective and they’ve hit on just about every summer signing thus far.

    Part of the strategy was to move quickly and decisively for targets who were not quite off the radar, but were on its margins, at other clubs and who appeared to have limited downside. At the back, they acquired Min-Jae Kim from Fenerbahce, a 26-year-old South Korea international who spent three seasons in China before his campaign in Turkey last season. Mathias Olivera, a Uruguay international, arrived battle-hardened from LaLiga strugglers Getafe. Norwegian defender Leo Ostigard arrived from Brighton after doing very well during a six-month loan at Genoa and proving himself in Serie A.

    In midfield, they took a calculated gamble taking Tanguy Ndombele on loan from Tottenham. A one-time phenom, Ndombele has basically been sub-par the last two seasons (including during a loan spell back home at Lyon), but the logic is simple: If he gets his act together, you have a standout player. If he doesn’t, he’s not a projected starter anyway and you send him back to his parent club.

    Striker Giovanni Simeone, best known to some for being Diego’s son and having a tattoo of the Champions League, was another low-risk loan. He scored a career high 17 goals last season for Verona, but the knock against him is that he’s streaky and, at 27, isn’t going to improve. Again, for one season, he’s a useful alternative to have. (Oh, and he’s already scored against both Ajax and Liverpool in the Champions League.)

    Then there’s Giacomo Raspadori, signed from Sassuolo on loan with an obligation to buy. (It’s basically an accounting trick: He’ll cost Napoli between €30m and €35m in transfer fees depending on performance.) Raspadori is a 22-year-old forward who is a part of the Italy squad but, possibly because he was at unglamorous Sassuolo, few big clubs were beating a path to his door. His age made him a risk worth taking.

    Finally, they acquired the player who possibly has had the greatest impact on Serie A this season: Khvicha Kvaratskhelia.

    The 21-year-old Georgian wunderkind is a human highlight reel who has been on scouting radars for the past three years. A combination of factors (including the war in Ukraine) made it possible for Napoli to sign him at a bargain fee of €10m. He already has six goals, three assists and more #Kvaradona mentions that you can shake a stick at (which matters in this town).

    – Schlewitz: How Napoli’s revamp made them a better team

    Last season’s holdovers are also performing at a high level. Whatever leadership void was left by the departures of Insigne, Koulibaly and Mertens is being filled by guys like Osimhen (before his injury), Piotr Zielinski and Giovanni Di Lorenzo. Goalkeeper Alex Meret, heavily criticised by some local media and supporters for lacking personality, has shown he belongs.

    And let’s not forget coach Luciano Spalletti. He may be an eccentric, but he has gotten the mood of the fans, the city and the squad just right, and he’s getting his young, high-energy team to play like one, whereas last year he catered a little more to the veterans with a more patient approach.

    There’s not necessarily a broader blueprint to follow here. What is working for them may not work for other clubs; maybe they have better decision-making personnel, or maybe they just got lucky. But it is remarkable that they’re in this position given how difficult it is to reload wholesale on the fly. And maybe their experience can encourage other clubs to be bold and make tough decisions of their own, too.

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