“Napoli can win the Scudetto again". I wrote it on September 16, after matchday 4, and perhaps those who mocked me have changed their minds

Matchday 4 had just passed, with Udinese surprisingly at the top, but the Napoli I saw in Cagliari had impressed me. So I went out on a limb and wrote what has actually come to pass

(Translated into English by Grok)

Matchday 4 had just passed, with Udinese surprisingly at the top, but the Napoli I saw in Cagliari had impressed me. So I went out on a limb and wrote what has actually come to pass.

Writing that Napoli can win the Scudetto with four matchdays left is something anyone could do; writing it after four matchdays is far more challenging. In any case, if there’s anyone else who did it—some major outlet, some prominent journalist—please point them out to me. I must have missed them.

What I can say for sure is that I was the one who, after four matches, wrote clearly and unequivocally that Napoli had excellent chances of winning the Scudetto again, two years after the title won under Spalletti. It was September 16, and the title of the article I wrote for my Substack subscribers (see above) was unmistakable: “Beware: if it took Napoli 33 years to win their 3rd Scudetto, it might take just one year—the one just past—for their 4th.”

Well, eight months later, Napoli’s 4th Scudetto in history (for me, the 5th: on my personal scorecard, as Rino Tommasi would have said, there’s also the one won by Sarri in 2017-18, the season of Inter-Juventus 2-3 refereed by Orsato) is now within reach. “I believe that if things go badly, Conte’s Napoli will finish second,” I concluded, just to ward off any jinxes. And, if I may say so, I’m happy not to have been wrong. In any case, if you find anything incorrect in the piece I wrote back when it was still summer, mocked and pitied by many, and which I’m now sharing here for everyone to read freely, please let me know. Happy reading, and thank you for your attention.

Beware: If It Took Napoli 33 Years to Win Their 3rd Scudetto, It Might Take Just One Year—the One Just Past—for Their 4th

Unlike Juventus, Milan, and Roma, the construction work at Conte’s site is progressing swiftly; as for Inter, this year they’ve set their sights on the Champions League (and yesterday showed it).

PAOLO ZILIANI

SEP 16, 2024

∙ PAID

From the league, despite the dreadful matches played by Juventus on Saturday and Inter yesterday—and assuming Milan-Venezia can be counted among the “good” games—comes some good news: after the last two seasons won by Napoli and Inter as early as January and closed in May with massive gaps over the runners-up (16 points for Napoli, 19 for Inter), which made them incredibly boring, this year we’ll see a Serie A defined by uncertainty, with two teams battling for the title (referees permitting) until the end. I apologize to Juventus, Milan, and Roma fans who might disagree, but I’m going out on a limb and saying that the 2024-25 Scudetto will be a two-horse race between Inter and Napoli. Inter remains as strong as last year, when they dominated and crushed the competition, but their priorities have shifted: if in 2023-24 the stated goal was to win the second-star Scudetto, even at the expense of the Champions League (as indeed happened), this year—and yesterday’s 1-1 draw in Monza, salvaged in the final moments, confirmed it—the priorities are the Champions League and, if it’s played in June 2025, the Club World Cup.

And then there’s Napoli, who, after the post-Scudetto stupor, have returned to the battlefield today with blazing armor and heavy artillery fully restored. To satisfy General Conte, De Laurentiis has spent like no one else in Europe, and smartly so. If the early signs are anything to go by, after seeing what Napoli—specifically, Napoli’s players, more or less the same as last year—did yesterday in Cagliari, where they looked like sixteen warriors from Kvara to Lukaku, from Meret to Neres (the last to come on), I feel confident saying that if it took Napoli 33 years to win their 3rd Scudetto, it might take far less for their 4th: perhaps just one year of waiting, the year of stupor now consigned to the archives.

I realize the risk I’m taking, that of ending up in the “famous last words” column, is very high; but the impression this new Napoli is giving is remarkable, especially compared to the impressions left by the new Juventus, the new Milan, and the new Roma—the other teams that set out to close the gap with Inter as much as possible. While Conte—who must thank De Laurentiis’ incredible generosity—is showing he has clear ideas and, already by matchday four, has unveiled a fairy-tale team with many aces still up his sleeve, elsewhere things are going miserably.

Juventus’ new coach, Thiago Motta, who received the same generous treatment on the transfer market as Conte did at Napoli, seems to have lost his way after a promising start: to the point that fans can’t tell if it’s the coach who’s getting confused or if the new signings, hyped as stars, are just ordinary players overpaid in the finest tradition of the Royal House. Whatever the case, the sign at Continassa still reads: work in progress.

Milan’s new coach, Paulo Fonseca, who announced the launch of a Milan with “dominant football”—and who, according to new executive Ibrahimovic, was hired to mark a decisive shift from the Pioli era—has stumbled right out of the gate. Far from dominant, in their early outings, Milan have looked like the fairground bear shot at by everyone: Torino, Parma, Lazio. And Saturday’s 4-0 thrashing of Venezia, with a goalkeeper who practically scored two own goals and conceded a self-inflicted penalty in twenty minutes, doesn’t count for much in my book. The two best players, Leao and Theo, are openly showing their dissatisfaction. At Milanello, the same sign: work in progress.

As for Roma’s confirmed coach, Daniele De Rossi, who did so well last year taking over from a monument like Mourinho and who, like Conte in Napoli and Motta in Turin, benefited from unusual generosity from the Friedkin ownership in the transfer market, his expression in post-match interviews yesterday in Genoa said it all; not to mention his words openly criticizing players who “did things I didn’t ask for,” words all the more striking knowing De Rossi the person before the coach. De Rossi seems to have lost much of his confidence. At Trigoria, the sign reads: work in progress.

An important detail: Motta’s Juventus, Fonseca’s Milan, and De Rossi’s Roma are all about to dive into the European competitions (Champions League for the first two, Europa League for the Giallorossi), which this year will demand greater effort due to the new format and increased number of matches. An effort that Conte’s Napoli won’t have to make. And there’s no need to remind anyone what Conte did in a similar situation when he debuted on the bench of a Juventus coming off a disastrous season—just like Napoli today—without European qualification: it was 2011-12, and Juventus won the Scudetto, snatching it from one of the last star-studded Milan sides of the Berlusconi era.

So, if the Napoli we saw yesterday in Cagliari wasn’t a mirage but the Napoli we’ll see in the next 34 matches—a group of players with helmets on, ready for anything—it’s hard to imagine they won’t be in the fight to win the Scudetto, their sole seasonal objective to which they can dedicate every ounce of physical and mental energy. As it stands, Napoli already seems perfectly equipped: but there are still Neres, McTominay, and Gilmour to integrate, more ammunition to load. Is Inter stronger? In terms of class and cohesion, yes. In terms of hunger and grit, perhaps not. And today, you only win by fighting tooth and nail.

The moral of the story? I believe that if things go badly, Conte’s Napoli will finish second. And maybe I’m wrong, maybe Juventus, Milan, Roma, Atalanta, Lazio, or Torino will do better, and Napoli will end up eighth or ninth: and you’ll rightly jeer at me. But I’ve decided to take the risk: let’s talk again on May 25. In the meantime, tell me what you think.