CorSport – Lucca can seize Napoli spot, will Conte rotate with Hojlund? | OneFootball

CorSport – Lucca has all the time to make Napoli his! How will Conte manage the rotation with Hojlund…

The goal will come soon because certain things are never forgotten and sometimes you just need to be patient. Lorenzo Lucca has all the time he needs to make Napoli his own. In the first two matches, he put himself to the test, suddenly finding himself as the only real attacking reference after Lukaku’s injury. He was supposed to learn a lot from Lukaku, but instead, he experienced the dawn of his Neapolitan adventure as a regular starter, with De Bruyne as a special ally and a team that often looked for him among new movements and mechanisms that inevitably require training and habit.

Lucca has time, and so does Conte, for the former Udinese striker to establish himself at Napoli as well. The big leap he so desired in the summer. After Retegui, the most expensive Italian of the last transfer window: 9 million plus 26 as a mandatory buyout in June, totaling 35 million (with Buongiorno, the most expensive Italian in Napoli’s history) for Lukaku’s alternative, a label that now feels too tight. Lucca is Napoli’s center-forward who, in Florence tomorrow, will immediately have another opportunity, with the new arrival Hojlund as the new teammate to share the opponent’s penalty area with. Soon, it will be one shirt for two, waiting for Lukaku, and a series of closely packed fixtures where both will be needed.

Lucca is learning under Conte, using the break to continue following his instructions, his advice, to understand what his center-forward must do, which movements to make, and how to be useful for the team. Lukaku, in this, is a master, but now that he’s injured, Lucca must accelerate his growth. The lack of goals in the first two matches is not newsworthy; rather, Conte has assessed his commitment, his generosity, his willingness to serve others by doing things different from his history and recent past. Against Sassuolo and Cagliari, Lucca played with a lot of physicality, tried to shield the ball, make useful lay-offs, and interact with De Bruyne, who wisely often approached him to tell him how to move, what to do, how to improve. Conte, too, often raised his voice for him from the bench. Useful advice and small details to refine.

Lucca is warming up for Fiorentina, then there will be City in the Champions League, and then Pisa at the Maradona. Three matches in nine days, six in less than a month. In this first tour de force, Lucca will also discover the rotation with Hojlund. Maybe it will be mainly him in Serie A, but for now, these are just hypotheses: everything will depend on the pitch, daily work, and the answers Conte gets in matches and training. And then, matches last ninety minutes and with five substitutions, everyone will be needed. That’s why Lucca has taken advantage of these days to move quickly, to run, and to follow through on one of his iconic phrases that describes him: afraid of nothing. Lucca loves challenges, Napoli was his dream, as his career shows with his experience at Ajax as a youngster and then 20 goals in Serie A in two years at Udinese, the consecration before the big leap. Now it’s time for a new step. Meanwhile, for him, Fiorentina is a sweet memory: his last goal, on May 25, was precisely against the Viola at the Bluenergy Stadium. But he also scored at the Franchi in the first leg. Tomorrow, 111 days after his last official goal, Lucca will want to try again.

Carlo Gioia

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