(by Arturo Minervini) – Zero to a frigid team. Unable to feel feelings, flat as a sea that has stopped being tickled by the breeze at the end of the day and indulges in a quiet that is not very compatible with the term ‘competition’. It is an aseptic Naples, sterilized like a dressing room subject to anti-Covid rules. Distanced from all that had been before getting lost in a decline in desire that not even a Tibetan monk.
One match to end the craziest championship in history. Mutiny, lockdown, pandemic, calendar compressed like a tin can and Ancelotti’s waiver. If we had taken a ride with DeLorean in this bizarre future, we would not have believed even half of the things that actually happened. For the immediate future, make the right choices: the play-off hypothesis would not be so peregrine.
Two penalties that are missing according to the seasonal orientation. But the referees are consistent and choose to follow another consolidated orientation this season: to deny solar penalties to Napoli. The score of the penalties not given was perhaps 18, maybe I lost it, yet I had it here a moment ago. Like the words, which are missing. Why there was a short circuit, because someone really should stand in front of a camera and tell us how certain decisions can be poles apart and we should be here nodding, continuing to think that everything is fine. No, it’s not all right.
Three defeats in the last five trips, with an equal (in Bologna) and a victory (in Genoa). Reverse trend compared to a part of the tournament that saw the team at ease away from San Paolo, a corollary of an approach that has long since bent on the sloth of those who do not find gratification in sacrifice. And in sports, if you lose the urge to sweat, you never win. Unless you’ve been Maradona.
Four to the dishonest. They pretend not to understand, just to try to feed their theories. Those who had rejected Gattuso when he arrived, those who now find their word after witnessing silent and from behind the great work of Ringhio. Analyzing the numbers of these last races is a purely stylistic exercise, because a fundamental part of the story is missing: ambition. In the novels, the ambition of the protagonists moves the story. Everyone wants something. A Naples without goals cannot be condemned or compared to a Naples (that of Ancelotti) that collapsed when much more had to be done.
Five minus to Milik, who just isn’t there any more. He has found his wife in bed with another and must also watch, but like all cuckolds now he would like to collect an ethical credit. It demands it. Perhaps he also feels offended in reading the name of Osimhen now printed on the Napoli number 9 shirt. His attitude is offensive, however, because the salary comes regularly. He has always arrived and Napoli has undoubtedly given him more than he has given to Napoli. A sad, distressing, dragged ending.
Six and a half to Zielinski. For the quality it expresses, sometimes tangled inside a mind that is the only brake to the definitive explosion. There are flashes of Piotr on the night of San Siro, segments of a universal midfielder who had to collect the legacy of Hamsik (but it will never be Marek) and who, like the Slovak, is always the subject of excessive, almost pretentious criticism. Because more and more of what he does is expected of him, as if having talent is a fault to be expiated at all times. Aren’t we going to be a little over the top?
Seven degrees of kinship. On Osimhen shortly will also express the uncle’s cugggggino, the great-grandmother who once had spoken to the great-granddaughter of the kindergarten teacher of an old girlfriend in Nigeria. It is the transfer market that crosses borders, which takes off its jacket and tie and becomes a popular story. It is the dream of an African boy who made it. It is energy, frenzy, waiting, desire, electrocution. It is Naples that embraces its new bomber, waiting for the word to end in order to avoid the bad surprises of a market doped by crazy figures. In the end, it’s fun even so.
August eight. Always eight August. In his hands a letter with a date and a warning: do not open before August 8th. It is the future that you savor on your fingertips, still hot ink and a finish that can be changed. The judgments and evaluations on this period of relaxation will be conditioned by the performance of the Camp Nou (as long as you play there). Will Napoli be able to hang up on the plug overnight? To pour all that is left in the head, legs, heart in 90 ‘to build a historical enterprise? There is no data to know, but excluding it a priori seems to me to be yet another premature ejaculation of analysts too presumptuous and too many times proven wrong by the facts. The web does not forget.
Nine is usually the center forward, but Napoli’s goal problem is more widespread. It is a malaise that affects every department, an offensive infertility that for years has accompanied this team that creates masterpieces and then rips them apart, following the dogma of a spectacular Riccardo Pazzaglia (aka Bansky): “Art is not for sale, art is destroyed”. The football of this team adheres to this current of thought: it creates for the sake of creating, thinking of non-collimating realities, they act on tracks destined not to cross. The next purchase campaign must have as a top priority the search for players who have a different relationship with the goal, a confidentiality that many Italians lack. Or rather: they never had it.
Ten to the bomb dropped by Gattuso. That does not hold back, which proposes a phrase that had become a catchphrase in its first weeks. “We miss the poison, we don’t play the soul.” There is a need for more soul, as Pino Daniele recalled. The one you occasionally step on, that you put under your feet. It is about personal pride, dedication to one’s work. Hours to devote to fatigue and to subtract from boat trips. Rino has thrown a stone that weighs like a faraglione of Capri, a destination much sought after in these days by the players. It is not populism, it is the consideration of those who know the dynamics of football and sport well. The holidays are inversely proportional to the victories. “Freedom, freedom, even the parrot will try it!”. But here we are slightly exaggerating.
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