If Luciano Spalletti and Napoli always seemed a natural fit, that wasn’t necessarily a compliment. Napoli were Serie A’s nearly team: eight top-three finishes since promotion in 2007 but no Scudetto. Spalletti was Italian football’s nearly manager: nine top-four finishes in Serie A with four different clubs but no Scudetto. A club that felt magnetised towards its own glorious failure had appointed a manager who was highly respected as an improver of teams but not a winner.
All that may still hold true. Nothing is won in the autumn other than plaudits and admirers. But the result of this combination is increasingly astounding. The opening 12 matches of Napoli’s league season have produced 32 points and 30 goals. In the Champions League, Napoli will come close to matching the all-time record for goals scored in the group stage. They managed 20 in their first five games – not bad for the third seeds in the group.
Atalanta had become Serie A’s appointment viewing – but no more. Spalletti’s Napoli have had more shots and shots on target than any other team. They are a team that deliberately plays at two speeds, slow and lightning fast. They build out from the back, lulling you into a false sense of comfort. Then they flick the switch and the midfield whirs and the attackers feast. They can play direct, if they please. That usually works too.
The mystique is created by improbability. In the summer, Napoli lost four of their best, and most senior, players: Kalidou Koulibaly to Chelsea, Fabian Ruiz to Paris Saint-Germain, Lorenzo Insigne to MLS and Dries Mertens to Galatasaray. Three of those were of an age that made their departure make sense, but supporters were unconvinced that replacing the spine of the team was a sensible way to backup the success of Spalletti’s first season and you saw their point.
Their recruitment in replacing the high-profile departees was flawless: Kvaratskhelia and Kim Min-jae from lower-ranked European leagues for mid-range prices; Giacomo Raspadori and Giovanni Simeone from Sassuolo and Verona on loan-to-buy deals; Tanguy Ndombele as a shot-to-nothing loanee. They also kept some of their underrated jewels: Hirving Lozano, Alex Meret, Stanislav Lobotka, Piotr Zielinski.
But if their success is based upon logic, upon sensible off-pitch strategies and on-pitch tactical systems that get the best out of their best, it doesn’t feel that way. Napoli are piping hot fun and that seems to be instructive. They are not cavalier. Four goals conceded in five Champions League games proves that. But Napoli appear to be fuelled by a desire to express themselves and to enjoy doing so.
Kvaratskhelia – affectionately known as “Kvaradona” – is the superstar of this team because he is its personification. He is unpredictable, impossible to pigeonhole, ludicrously talented and ludicrously determined to show off that talent. Watching Kvaratskhelia is like standing on the sidelines of an under-11’s trial match when the players have been told that they have five minutes to impress. It is as if the Georgian is fulfilling a dream from which he knows he could wake at any moment. No time to lose – best do a pirouette, drop my shoulder and have a shot.
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It is impossible to ignore the reflections of history here. Whether Napoli have had fun because they have succeeded or succeeded because they have had fun, this club has always been at its best when they are committed to bringing aesthetic joy to their city. In the late-1980s, that aesthetic peak came not when winning the league but the following season, when Maradona and Careca were the top two scorers in Serie A and Napoli scored 12 more than anyone else. Walter Mazzarri’s team of the early 2010s had Marek Hamsik, Ezequiel Lavezzi and Edinson Cavani running wild. One of Maurizio Sarri’s teams scored 94 league goals, with Mertens, Insigne and Arkadiusz Milik all at their rampant best.
Perhaps there is something in this. Spalletti has been keen to talk up the impact his football team can have on a city, but maybe it strays into interdependency. If Napoli is to be successful, what if it needs to reflect its city: highly unpredictable, vibrant, occasionally tempestuous, formed through a melting pot of different styles that could so easily look like a mess but somehow stays together to produce something intoxicating. Spalletti used a phrase in his press conference before the reverse fixture against Liverpool: “The enthusiasm must prevail over the tension.” That could be a tagline for Naples.
There are still bridges to cross, most of them psychological and each of them significant. Napoli also won 10 and drew two of their first 12 league games last season and were a point behind Milan with seven games remaining. If this club is destined to be reflective of its city, it is therefore destined to be flawed and liable to combust.
For now, though, this is enough. If you transfix on the chances of your adventure lasting, you will forget to enjoy it and you risk it becoming a chore. The time for worrying about maintaining leads and thwarting Serie A’s giants is for the spring. This is the time for wonder: How good can we be? How far can we go? How much fun can we have?
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