Napoli supporters feared that the squad that soared above Serie A last season would be shattered and plundered by Europe’s greats. But with the exception of South Korean Kim Min-jae, best defender of the 2022-23 Championship who left for Bayern Munich, the executives of the team which was crowned five days from the end and relegated its runner-up to 16 points , are all still there. Starting with Victor Osimhen: the Nigerian has been announced at PSG, England or even Saudi Arabia, but he will wear the Napoli shirt again this season, possibly with a new contract.
Naples, on the other hand, lost Luciano Spalletti, its coach since 2021, who, tired, quickly chose as soon as the title was won to step back. To replace him, the president-owner Aurelio De Laurentiis chose Rudi Garcia, free since his departure from Al-Nassr where he guided the first steps in Saudi Arabia of Cristiano Ronaldo. The French coach has endeavored since his arrival to shake up his group and make them forget their certainties: “For a group, it’s always interesting to experiment, otherwise you’ll get bored”, he explained to the DAZN platform. “Next year we have to play in the Champions League, so finishing in the top 4 is a minimum,” warned the former coach of AS Roma (2014-16) where he had succeeded a certain … Spalletti .
The most successful club in Italy is not about to forget the 2022-23 season: its setbacks behind the scenes (accounting fraud, failure to respect financial fair play) cost it ten points in the standings (7th instead of of 3rd) and deprived him of European competition only for the fourth time since 1958. The “Old Lady” will recover quickly from not participating in the Europa League Conference play-offs, but she would recover less well from a non- qualification for the Champions League at the end of the season.
To achieve the C1 objective, Juve have recruited Timothy Weah and could afford Sassuolo and Italy striker Domenico Berardi in the coming days. Without forgetting a reinforcement of choice, a year after his arrival, Paul Pogba who collected injuries last season and seems close to his best level.
It’s the most active and expensive team in Italy this summer: AC Milan have spent 109 million euros to rejuvenate their squad with the Americans Christian Pulisic and Yunus Musah, the Englishman Ruben Loftus-Cheek had yet Nigerian Samuel Chukwueze. In the departures department, Zlatan Ibrahimovic hung up his boots and Sandro Tonali brought in 64 million euros by joining Newcastle. With Rafael Leao and the indestructible Olivier Giroud guiding this young guard, Stefano Pioli’s team can hurt and aim higher than their 4th place last season.
Its great Milanese rival, Inter, has been strong on the transfer market by recovering more than 120 million euros with the departure of goalkeeper André Onana to Manchester United (52 million), Andrea Pinamonti to Sassuolo (20 million ) or Marcelo Brozovic to Al-Nassr (18 million). Inter, 3rd in Serie A and Champions League runners-up, have done some good business welcoming out-of-contract players like Marcus Thuram and Juan Cuadrado, but Simone Inzaghi is still waiting for at least one international-caliber striker to make up for it the return to Chelsea of Romelu Lukaku (21 goals).
