1 month ago
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I have to be honest, Napoli are my team. There’s something about the outsider, underdog nature of the club and the city that has always appealed to me. They aren’t part of Italian football or societies traditional old guard. As such my selections in this side are a lot more personal than those of some of the other clubs I’ve picked. I’ve still had a criterion of sorts though, with players drawing from three great eras of the club. The first two Scudetto-winning Napoli sides were full of character and are rightly and hugely loved; my favourite Napoli team, the desperately unlucky Sarriball team of the late 2010s and then the most recent title-winning team of 2022. All of these teams played exciting, attacking football and were exhilarating to watch.
Claudio Garella
Goalkeeper was the hardest position to pick for this team. Napoli has had some great players between the sticks; Pepe Reina, Alex Meret, Dino Zoff and Giuliano Giuliani were the other players in consideration. But Napoli had never won a title until Garella arrived in Naples in the summer of 1986. After being a key part of Hellas Verona’s ‘miraculous’ title win a few years before, he was apparently hand picked by Maradona as the Argentinian began plotting his side’s own ascent to the league title.
Garella had an almost lumbering bearing about him until it became time to pull off a save. He was spectacular, springing into the air and almost attacking the ball in order to repel it. His was a famously unorthodox, almost-chaotic style of shot stopping, but it was effective. He helped deliver the club’s first Scudetto during his first season, and also picked up a Coppa Italia. Perhaps not the most consistent at times, but it’d fun watching him at five-a-side!
Ciro Ferrara
There must be something in the water in Naples, because the city has produced some great defenders. The most successful of all was Ferrara; two Serie A titles, a Coppa Italia and a Uefa Cup illustrates that whilst Maradona might have been the fulcrum of that side, Ferrara was the bulwark. He was a defender in the classical Italian sense, in that he could and often would hit opposition players hard (and occasionally cynically) but was extremely tactically aware.
Capable of playing as a fullback in his Napoli days, he could cross, pass and make runs when required, great skills for five a-side. But he was also disciplined and could play as a modern style centre back or old-school sweeper when the occasion required. His departure from the club in 1994 to Juventus was indicative of Napoli’s finical and sporting decline, and also a return to the northern hegemony of Milan, Internazionale and Juve. His enduring success in Turin was a bleak reminder for those in Naples of what could have been.
Marek Hamsik
As a fan of Napoli, one of the most bittersweet periods was Sarriball. Under the management of erstwhile banker Maurizio Sarri from 2015-2018, Napoli played some divine football that came up just short. Intricate passing triangles, fluidity, subtelty mixed with directness, it was a joy to watch. At the hub of all this movement and creativity was the Slovakian midfielder Hamsik.
Signed from Brescia in 2007, he was part of the short-lived but fondly-remembered ‘Three Musketeers’ era with Edinson Cavani and Ezequiel Lavezzi (both of whom were unlucky to miss this teams cut). Yet whilst his first partners in crime departed for Paris Saint-Germain, Hamsik blossomed into a complete midfielder under Sarri’s tenure. A winger, a No 10, and a deep-lying playmaker; he could do it all and often did in the same game. Add in his versatility with his leadership abilities and ability to score from distance and he was desperately unlucky to never pick up a title during his 12 years at the club. Something tells me he might pick up a few wins with this team, though.
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Khvicha Kvaratskhelia
The Georgian winger has by far the least amount of appearances in this list, with less than a 100 at the time of publication. Yet he is undoubtably one of the most influential players to pull on that I Ciucciarelli shirt. An absolute steal in the summer of 2022 for under €15m, he instantly began to light up the league. Kvaratskhelia is such a unique player; visually he looks somewhat of a throwback. With his mop of hair, sweatbands, wrist tape and languid demeanour at times he could be mistaken for a 1970s ‘luxury’ player.
Yet in practice he is the complete modern forward. Extremely quick, an inventive dribbler and with the versatility to play in a number of attacking positions, he was a revelation upon his arrival. The Scudetto returned to the city for only the third time in their history as he led the line as a tricky winger, intelligent playmaker and lethal striker all rolled into one. He is all about the end product; although he does it with plenty of grace, he wants to score a goal or make a goal when he gets the ball. A player made for small pitches.
Diego Maradona
The greatest footballer of all time in my humble opinion, and it’s a view form largely based on his exploits in Naples. Serie A in the late 1980s was a super league. Juve, Milan, Inter, Roma, Lazio all had superstars. Even Udinese had Zico. Napoli were a mid-table team when Maradona arrived after some rather lacklustre seasons at Barcelona. Finding his home from home in southern Italy, he became a man possessed, leading the club to their first Serie A title. He added another one for good measure and a Uefa Cup.
This team doesn’t really have an out-and-out striker but it doesn’t need one. Maradona could score all sorts of goals, hitting double figure in each of his seven seasons. He was also the archetype No 10, a hub of energy, and could create chances with dribbles and passes which still seem unbelievable. He was also a set-piece genius. But it was also his passion, gall, confidence, ego, charisma and drive which propelled Napoli to the heights of success. This marker of greatness isn’t quantifiable in terms of stats, XG or any of that. He didn’t just epitomise Napoli as a club or Naples as a city; he embodied a whole era of football. What I’d give to see him captain this team on a five-a-side pitch.
