Davide Ancelotti’s Seville trips led him to back Fabian Ruiz’s Napoli move before PSG face Lille | OneFootball

PSG host Lille on Friday at 20:45, a meeting that reunites Davide Ancelotti and Fabian Ruiz. According to L'Équipe, the pair’s connection predates this season.

In 2017-2018, Ancelotti, often in Seville visiting his fiancée, watched Ruiz regularly for Betis. On 12 February 2020, after Ruiz’s exquisite strike at Inter in a Coppa Italia semi-final first leg that ended 1-0, TNT Sports commentator Adam Summerton neatly framed that backstory.

His on-air summary suggested that, without Ancelotti’s Andalusian relationship, he might not have seen so much Betis, nor recommended Ruiz to his father, and that goal might never have happened. The broad thrust chimed with events, but one detail was off.

It was not his father whom Ancelotti junior lobbied in summer 2018, it was Cristiano Guintoli, then Napoli’s sporting director. By then, Ancelotti had become an assistant at the club and had pushed the hierarchy to move for Ruiz.

Both men come into Friday’s game with that shared history in the background. Their paths first crossed in Seville, then converged in Naples.

Source: L'Équipe

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