With June over, and the dust settled it is time for us to look forward to the upcoming season. Maria and I were lucky enough to enjoy the party first-hand as we went to Napoli on the final day of the season. Just being in the city, partying outside the stadium, and being in the moment was every bit as incredible as you could imagine.
We have been truly blessed.
But since that amazing day in June, there have been a lot of changes within the club since our title victory party.
Firstly and most evidently Spalletti will not be our coach next season.
Via www.areanapoli.it
For whatever reason, (probably due to ADL) Spalletti would rather not manage the team’s defense of the Scudetto. Which is somewhat surprising and understandable in equal measure!
The official line is that wants a break from football and would like to spend more time with his family which we are sure is true. But I do tend to think there is something else. Either something he knows we don’t (a massive clear out, no new signings, unrealistic targets) or ADL is insufferable or and what is more likely, both.
In Spalletti’s place, however, we now have Rudi Garcia, who we will look at later. However, Garcia’s appointment has been met with a large amount of skepticism.
Secondly and maybe more importantly Cristiano Giuntoli who has been sporting director since 2015 has chosen to move on as well.
Via www.calciomercato.com
No one can say that Giuntoli has not been instrumental in the progress of Napoli over the last 8 years. He has totally changed the club in many positive ways. And we are sincerely thankful for all of the incredible work he has done for Napoli. Grazie.
Whereas finding a replacement for Spalletti is more achievable, finding a sporting director who will be able to work with ADL and be successful is a much tougher order. The front-runner at the time of writing is Frederic Massara who recently left his post as the director of football of A.C. Milan, who to be fair, with Maldini, seemed to be doing a look job for the Rossoneri.
Of course, there are the typical rumour mill stories circulating about our title-winning heroes, some of which are more realistic than others.
www.tuttomercatoweb.com
Min-jae Kim is certainly the most talked about due to a release clause in his contract. Allowing him to leave for as little €50 million to certain suitors if he so chooses to. But he very well may stay.
As for other players, such as Matteo Politano, Hirving Lozano, and Piotr Zieliński who have all been given column space recently, time will tell. But we may very well see a few leave and a few arrive after Garcia has evaluated the squad.
Two key players who are frequently mentioned in the press are naturally:
Khvicha Kvaratskhelia who seems to be staying. And Victor Osimhen who seemed to be leaving. As with Kim a lot of this seems to be conjecture at the moment with no clear signal of intent from a club or from the player. If Osimhen were to leave though it would be for a huge sum, €100 million or more.
Now back to Rudi Garcia. First some history…
Via www.napoli.corriere.it
Rudi Garcia broke on to the international footballing scene back in the 2010-11 season after leading French club Lille to the double, winning both Ligue 1 and Coupe de France.
That team was full of top players such as Moussa Sow (the league’s top-scorer that year with 25 goals), Yohan Cabaye, Gervinho, and an ever-present exceptional Eden Hazard but Garcia was the man who got them playing good football together, and needlessly to say this made him one of the most sort after managers at the time.
After two more seasons at Lille, he moved to Italy and became the head coach of Roma. His first season in Serie A was good with his team finishing second only to Juventus but the second season was a disaster and he was sacked before the end of the season and replaced by… Spalletti.
In 2018 he reached the Europe League final with Marseille but lost to Atlético Madrid and other than that not much else.
He lost a Coupe de la Ligue final with Lyon in 2020 and then went to coach Cristiano Ronaldo in Saudi Arabia and here we are today.
Tactics.
In many ways, he is very similar to Spalletti. In prefers a 4-3-3 kind of system, his game is very possession-based and offensive-focused and because of this, there is quite a lot of freedom given to his front players. Who are free to express themselves with a degree of discipline.
In possession.
Garica likes to move the ball up the pitch using vertical patterns and triangles. He also wants to overload wide areas with the fullbacks staying wide and having the wingers cut inside trying two-on-one situations. Typically the midfielders are there to help build up possession and to offer the wide players a passing lane, a point of a triangle, without much responsibility for creating attacking options further up the pitch. The fullbacks are also usually restricted to where they can roam and this is something that is very different from the current system deployed.
Out of possession.
When defending the team forms a compact mid-block and looks to regain the ball at certain pressure triggers. Garica is not the kind of manager to be happy to sit back and re-win the ball inside his own penalty area. Commonly, the two centre-backs and two central midfielders create a square. Giving stability and control to the central areas. At times a third more advanced midfielder will drop back creating a pentagon. Making the transition from defense to attack as smooth as possible. The big question…will it work?
Well, Rudi Garcia is maybe the closest manager to Spalletti in the world, just dare I say an inferior version. Back in 2011, this would have been an exciting hire. But now after promising so much and delivering so little, there are real questions as to whether or not he is an elite manager. Can Napoli even compete for the title next season? Let alone win it again especially if some of our top players leave? Should we be aiming for a top-four finish and a Coppa Italia win? As for the Champions League, the little said about that the better.
But then again we were in a very similar situation last year. Who truly thought that after losing players such as Fabian Ruiz, Kalidou Koulibaly, and Ciro Mertens we would dominate the league like we did last year? Many questions and too few answers.
Look, we should be backing our new manager over the summer and see what player changes happen then we believe that Rudi Garcia needs at least until Christmas to try and implement his style on the team but after Christmas, if we are not at least fighting at the top of the table heads should roll.
