As soon as Aurelio De Laurentiis
said that he wasn’t talking to Rafa about becoming his new manager we should
have known the contract was as good as signed.
For anyone who doesn’t know De Laurentiis’ previous proclamations (and
they’re well worth a Google; Messi is a cretin and Lavezzi uses prostitutes are
two highlights) he has a long history of saying whatever he wants to the
press. Not that he fooled anyone with
this, right from the start Benitez seemed too good a fit to ignore.
For a guy who’s won a Champion’s
League, two Europa League’s, a Spanish League Title and an FA Cup, it’s
surprisingly easy to feel sorry for Rafa.
For the discerning English based football fan it always seems that he’s
getting more abuse than he deserves, apparently hilarious though the Spanish waiter
stuff is. His time at Chelsea cemented
his place as a skilled manager who once said some vaguely contentious things
about a couple of clubs that he wasn’t managing at the time and has been paying
for it ever since. After doing a very
good job in trying circumstances at Stamford Bridge his only option for further
career redemption was to go abroad.
Somewhere they don’t make the fat waiter jokes preferably.
Last season Napoli were the best
of the rest in Serie A, comfortably finishing second behind Juventus, six
points clear of AC Milan in third. A
title challenge only briefly threatened to burst into life. In truth there was probably more distance
between them and Juve than the nine points suggest. After the best part of four years Walter
Mazzarri has left as manager to join Inter.
There are rumours (as there are every year) that Edinson Cavani will
leave. Rafa has issues to solve. When he looks at the teams around him he’ll
find reasons for optimism. AC Milan are
debating whether to sack their manager Allegri.
Fiorentina look likely to sell Stevan Jovetic. Both Lazio and Roma look at least a few
players short. And Inter are coming off
one of their worst seasons in living memory with Mazzarri being brought in to
attempt to turn the club around. Napoli
are in a better position than most.
Replacing Cavani will likely be
Rafa’s first order of business. It isn’t just his goals, although in finishing as
top scorer with 29 in the league last season he scored close to 40% of his team’s
total, that’s a difficult enough job by itself.
Cavani is also rightly feted for his all round play, in particular his
ability to hold up the ball so effectively.
This role was crucial in the success of Mazzarri’s 3-4-3 system,
allowing his team to keep the ball long enough to bring others into play. Napoli dealt with Lavezzi leaving for PSG
last season with apparently few issues.
From the outside Cavani looks impossible to replace. Rafa will be hoping that if their one truly
exceptional player leaves the rest of the squad will contribute enough to make
up the shortfall (an argument can be made that this is what happened post-RVP
at Arsenal this season, they lost a 30 goal a season striker and responded by
spreading the goals out among the team, finishing only 2 goals down on the
2011-12 total with no one player scoring over Walcott’s 14). Time will tell if Napoli can achieve this.
Rafa’s history at collecting
trophies everywhere he’s been will be a welcome omen at a club still looking
fondly back at the memory of Maradona making it look all too easy. He’ll be hoping to go one better than
Mazzarri’s 2011-12 Copa Italia. After
his Europa League success he has another Champions League to plan. The biggest question mark against his
appointment is his unhappy six months at Inter in 2010. As with quite a few of the Inter managers not
named Jose Mourinho you end up being surprised they lasted as long as they
did. Aside from the difficulty in
following Jose Rafa had to deal with the player the team was built around,
Wesley Sneijder, deciding he was only going to play in a position that no
longer existed. After issuing an ultimatum
asking for new signings (something Rafa is prone to do, see Valencia and
Liverpool) Moratti decided he rather wouldn’t and sacked him. The actual style of the league seemed to fit.
It’ll be interesting to see how Rafa
sets his Napoli team up. In the past,
whether it’s Valencia, Liverpool or Chelsea he’s favoured something like
4-2-3-1, with two holding midfielders allowing another further forward to
dictate play. Napoli’s strength has been
in their midfield fluidity. It seems
likely he’ll move away from having three at the back. Defensively they had the second best record
in the league last season, suggesting there isn’t too much wrong. They also scored the most goals. Aside from improving their record in Europe
and trying to get to the knockout stages of the Champions League, it will be a
tough ask for Benitez to improve on this season’s stats (a sustained title challenge
at the least is what he’ll be expecting).
Ultimately it will be the players
brought in that’ll make or break Napoli’s season. They’ve previously had great success in
bringing in players from South America and working the Italian market. With Rafa arriving they’ve been rumours
Chelsea will swap Cavani for Torres plus £25 million. If it’s the Europa League version of Torres
they buy it may even end up as a good deal.
One consistent criticism of Rafa throughout his career has been that his
transfer dealings haven’t been as successful as he would have hoped for (trying
to sign Gareth Barry and sell Xabi Alonso will do that for you). If the network and systems are already in
place at Napoli, and indications are that they are, then Rafa could focus on
being a more continental style coach. Presumably
he’s been given guarantees about how many of Cavani, Inler, Vargas and Hamsik
will be sold. Keep hold of three, invest
wisely and they could well be Juventus’ main challengers again.
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