Napoli’s Premier path: from elite cast-offs to golden pillars | OneFootball

There is an invisible but increasingly marked line that connects Napoli Football to the Premier League. It's not just a market trend, but an identity strategy: in recent years, Aurelio De Laurentiis has chosen to draw more and more often from the English championship, transforming what elsewhere was considered marginal into technical protagonism and sporting capital. This is reported by Gazzetta dello Sport.

Napoli, the new Premier route: from elite scraps to golden pillars of the De Laurentiis project

A silent but incisive philosophy, started more than ten years ago and now fully matured with Napoli 3.0. A project built on solid foundations, but also on courageous intuitions: former forgotten promises, players expiring or off the radar in England become central values under Vesuvius.

The origins: Benitez and the first experiments The Napoli-Premier axis was born in 2013 with the arrival of Rafa Benitez, taken from Chelsea. It is the first clue of the growing link with English football. In those years, Pepe Reina represents one of the symbols of the "British" relaunch operation in Naples. However, the experiments of 2016 - Nathaniel Chalobah and Axel Tuanzebe - prove to be not very incisive. Both arrive with great expectations, but leave very few traces.

These first operations seemed to archive the idea that something really useful could come from the Premier. But the intuition is only postponed, not forgotten.

Anguissa: the turning point of Napoli 3.0 The turning point comes in the summer of 2022 with Frank Anguissa. Discovered by Fulham, the former Cameroonian midfielder represents the perfect prototype of the new course: 500,000 euros for the loan, 14 million for the redemption. In just one year, he becomes a pillar of the midfield and one of the pillars of the championship won in 2023.

Anguissa is not just a successful market hit: it is the practical demonstration that in Naples you can regenerate talent, enhancing it in a system that rewards discipline, intensity and organization.

McTominay, Gilmour and the new sap of Manna In 2024, the arrival of Giovanni Manna as sports director gives further impetus to the strategy. The profiles become more ambitious:

Scott McTominay, a symbol of United but relegated to the margins, is snatched for 30 million euros and repositioned as a physical and tactical pivot of the blue midfield.

Billy Gilmour, looking for a relaunch after a dull experience at Brighton, arrives for 14 million.

Philip Billing, borrowed from Bournemouth, transforms into an unexpected protagonist: his goal against Inter becomes one of the sliding doors of the championship race.

Napoli thus discovers its ability not only to buy, but to reinterpret players, adapting them to a demanding and ambitious tactical context.

Now De Laurentiis dreams big: De Bruyne in the sights And while Napoli wins and grows, the profile of ambitions rises. The name that circulates insistently is that of Kevin De Bruyne, expiring with Manchester City. A suggestion? Not just that.

De Laurentiis carefully evaluates the opportunity to bring one of the symbols of modern football to Naples. The cost of the engagement (with a signing bonus of 10 million) is no longer an obstacle. The entrepreneurial and sporting vision of the club today allows operations unthinkable in the past. De Bruyne represents the ideal end point of a strategy that has lasted a decade: no longer just regeneration, but attraction of excellence.

Conclusion: Napoli and the Premier, a laboratory of success While the Premier League continues to represent the top of global football in economic and media terms, Napoli establishes itself as the club capable of giving new life to what in England becomes superfluous. A silent transformation, but under everyone's eyes.

Today Napoli no longer collects what others discard: it selects, forms, relaunches. And wins.

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇮🇹 here.