Success has devoured the Naples. He arrives on Wednesday for his European match against Barça shaken by a chaotic season where he has soiled the crown that made him the owner of Serie A nine months ago. He reached the Scudetto, the first after the time of Diego Armando Maradona after 33 endless years of waiting, and the volcano erupted with another change of coach.
Nothing is what it was in those good times in the Italian club, now involved in trouble, controversies and a football as sad as it is ineffective that has distanced it from the elite of its country, as was demonstrated by tying last Saturday in the last breath. (m. 90) against Genoa at home (1-1). And 27 points behind the leader, Inter.
“I am not resigning, I already knew the difficulty of what I was assuming,” he said. Walter Mazzarri, the technician who replaced Rudy Garcia last November, while the whistles of the Neapolitan fans flooded the stadium and Aurelius of Laurentiis, the owner of the club, was contemplating dismissal with Barça just around the corner. The dismissal took effect on Monday night: Francesco Calzonathe current coach of Slovakia, replaces Mazzarri.
The Italian club has made up to four additions this winter. He opted for the Belgian winger Tired, author of the goal against Genoa, for whom he paid 20 million to Hellas Verona, Dendonckeralso a Belgian defensive midfielder on loan from Aston Villa, Hamed Traorethe Ivorian attacking midfielder, who has been on loan from Bournemouth, and the Italian right-back Mazzochi, for whom he paid 3 million to Salernitana. But the crisis does not stop.
Walter Mazzarri, the Napoli coach, during the match with Genoa at the Diego Armando Maradona Stadium. / EFE
After Spalletti’s goodbye, chaos: neither Rudi García nor Mazzarri
The architect of success left and the team collapsed. He relied on the creativity and tactical modernity that Luciano Spalletti, the current Italian coach, gave him, so his goodbye, and by his own will, unleashed chaos.
He was leaving, as he confessed, “for love” of the club and to take a sabbatical, something he did not do later. lThe bet on the Frenchman Rudi Garcia was as brief (barely five months) as it was disappointing (16 games, only eight wins), so Di Laurentis, owner of the Partenopean club, went to an old master of the old soccer.
Last November it was placed in the hands of Walter Mazzarri. But the team did not raise its head. “Too many players have been changed compared to last year, we cannot be the same,” argued the veteran coach, who at 62 years old, found no way out of the football and even identity crisis that is suffocating Naples. Francesco Calzona It is the third way.
Victor Osimhen, the Napoli star, follows the match with Genoa from the box of the Diego Armando Maradona Stadium. / AP
Osimhen, the star, is angry and wants to leave in June
“I have already made a decision for next season,” he proclaimed. Victor Osimhen, the great star of the team that made Spalletti champion, challenging Juventus, Inter and Milan. He scored 26 goals in 32 games, a galactic figure. But those words are old. They are almost a month old, but they maintain the same validity because the scorer feels prepared to play in teams larger than Naples.
At 25 years old, and after being the star of Scudetto, He is angry with the club. And even with his colleagues. Nothing ties Osimhen (119 games, 67 goals) already to the team that opened the door to Italy (paid 60 million to Lille in summer 2020), aware that Paris SG needs a renowned scorer to fill the hole left by the next departure of Mbappé.
It has a fixed starting price, since His termination clause is 130 million euros. He is on the market, pending the Premier League’s greats (Chelsea and United, above all) on his decision. His last game with Naples dates back to December 23, then he went to the African Cup with Nigeria. Osimhen is going to reappear against Barça, the team needed its scoring center forward.
He has played very little this season. Just 13 matches. He has already missed 12 games (four due to a muscle injury, seven for the African tournament and one because he did not take the flight back to Italy on time). He will return motivated and eager to vindicate himself in the decisive stretch of the season.
An indecipherable tactical confusion
In three months, Mazzarri has gone through up to four different tactical modules without finding stability for his team. He started chained to the 4-3-3, trapped by the legacy of Spalletti, but he couldn’t get out of that labyrinth. TO Rudi Garcia The same thing happened to him and it cost him his dismissal. The new coach will not have time to make too many changes,
Mazarri tried almost everything. First with the 4-4-2, delaying the wayward a little Kvaratskhlelia to attack with only two forwards: Simeone and Raspadori. Then, in the midst of an emergency, when he realized that Napoli was not working, he resorted to the tactical suit of the three center backs (By Lawrence, Rrahmani and John Jesus) to give defensive stability to a team that has no balance.
Less ball and a more compact team Mazzarri sought in an endless revolution. Endless and sterile, resorting to the 4-2-3-1 already desperately and the confidence of recovering Osimhen, “of which I have had very little”, he lamented after the draw with Genoa. “On the first occasion they score a goal against us and we don’t know how to take advantage of the opportunities we have,” Mazzarri later complained, in a speech similar to that of Xavi.
Naples is considered in Italy as one of the worst champions in history because it is 27 points behind the leader, Inzaghi’s intractable Inter and there are still 14 games left to finish Serie A.
Di Laurentiis, a volcanic owner
There is no calm day next to Vesuvius, that active volcano located in the Bay of Naples. “We already know since last summer that Osimhen will leave in June,” said Aurelio Di Laurentiis, the owner of the Italian club since 2004, who upon learning that Zielinski, another of its stars, was negotiating to leave at the end of this season to the Inter, taking advantage of the fact that it was free, opted for the most drastic route.
He separated him from the team, in addition to blaming his statements against the Polish footballer’s agent. He has ‘kicked’ him from Naples by not registering him even for the Champions League, so he will not be able to play this Wednesday against Barça. Although he does play in Serie A. Another Neapolitan contradiction.
“He wants to leave because he has an agent who stinks and smells the smell of money,” the Neapolitan leader went so far as to say, who thinks about life after Osimhen, fixing his gaze on Santiago Gimenezthe Mexican forward of Feyenoord (22 years old), or Joshua Zirkzee, Belgian scorer for Bologna (22). But the problem was detected. The success of the scudetto took away Spalletti’s work.
“It was a mistake that he left, but I am not Napoli’s problem,” Di Laurentiis said at a press conference on February 7, accepting his ruling for not retaining Spalletti. While he confirmed that he negotiated with Thiago Motta, Bologna coach, (“he wants a great player abroad”) and Luis Enrique, among others. “After three days he chose PSG, what can I do?” Well, it happened to Rudi García. And he was wrong. And Mazzarri has not solved anything.
2024-02-20 09:21:05
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