SSC Napoli

[red]

Wonder if other teams will take note of how well Fiorentina did against Napoli tonight.

Fiorentina played 4-3-3, keeping the defence and midfield pretty deep and the wingers high up the pitch.

Cerci, in particular, was able to take advantage of the space down the side of Napoli's back three and Fiorentina would probably got a goal out of Cerci's play if Gilardino had been playing.

Napoli changed to a back four to close down that space on the flanks, but that meant that they struggled to get width in their own play, which made it much easier for Fiorentina to pack the centre of the pitch and crowd out Napoli's talented forwards.

[RomaShield27]

I missed that game, Red, and looks like Villareal weren't paying much attention to it either, if you're on the money. Good victory for Napoli last night, they looked a little shaky in the second-half and sat back a bit too much, but they got their in the end. Great start to the group stages for them, but they'll still be doing extremely well to qualifying from this group.




– Milano, 28 September 2011

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Looking forward to Napoli v Bayern tonight, should be a belter. Napoli will be up against it, coming off the back of a defeat at home to Parma at the weekend while Bayern had a big win in da Bundesliga. Of course, you could say Napoli did have an eye on tonights game, but they did field a full strength team. Lot of attacking flair on show with Cavani and Lavezzi and Hamsik, and Gomez and Ribery and Muller.

Good preview of the game here:

http://msn.foxsports.com/foxsoccer/cham ... ich-101711

[red]

Couple of Bayern fans were stabbed last night, but the injuries weren't serious.

[RomaShield27]

Only a couple? Still plenty of time left before kick-off.

[RomaShield27]

Napoli were fortunate enough to get a draw. They didn't play great and never really had a period of dominance and put Bayern under pressure the way you'd expect a home team too. You have to give credit to Bayern for that, though, they were immense, and are playing some super football at the moment. They could go all the way. Pity Citeh got a jammy win.


De Sanctis heroics help Napoli hold Bayern
Reuters - Yesterday, 22:10

Morgan De Sanctis saved a second-half penalty from Mario Gomez as Napoli earned a 1-1 draw against a dominant Bayern Munich in a lively Group A encounter at the San Paolo stadium on Tuesday. Bayern struck first with only two minutes on the clock when Toni Kroos was allowed acres of space inside the Napoli box before placing his shot into the corner.

Napoli, who have not lost at home since returning to European competition three years ago, equalised on 39 minutes when Christian Maggio's right-wing cross was deflected into the net by Holger Badstuber's lunging dive. Bayern piled on the pressure after Gomez had his 49th-minute penalty saved but Napoli held on, with the result leaving the Germans top of the group on seven points with Napoli in second place on five. Manchester City lie third on four.

Napoli coach Walter Mazzarri said he was delighted to be second at the halfway point of the group. "Some people said that at this stage we would be bottom," he told reporters. "We haven't set targets so after each game we have to see where we are.

"Our boys are not used to games like these. After their goal we changed tactics and played a great game. This is one of the best sides in Europe - they've won twice already in the group. In the end, we could even have won it."

Bayern coach Jupp Heynckes said the draw was a crucial step towards qualification to the knockout stages. "I'm not a prophet, but I'm confident now we will qualify," he told reporters. "We came here to win - and I think we deserved the win - but I'm fairly happy with a draw.

"We went at Napoli at the start, controlled the game and stayed tight at the back. Napoli played with a lot of heart and I think they stand a good chance of qualifying too."

The German giants made the perfect start on two minutes when Kroos collected Thomas Muller's pass and ran through the heart of the Napoli defence before calmly side-footing the ball past De Sanctis's despairing dive to silence the home fans. Napoli tried to respond to the body-blow immediately, but Hugo Campagnaro's seventh-minute drive whistled the wrong side of the post.

Bayern, whose impressive early season form under Heynckes has seen them open up a five-point lead in the Bundesliga, began to boss things. Gomez, shooting wide from the edge of the box, and Jerome Boateng, volleying a corner across the face of goal, almost doubled their lead.

The Napoli attacking trio were failing to fire but they equalised against the run of play six minutes before half-time when Maggio, breaking down the right, saw his cross-shot take a small but damaging deflection off Badstuber, wrong-foot Manuel Neuer and nestle in the net to ignite the San Paolo.

There was more deafening noise after half-time but jeers when Paolo Cannavaro was adjudged to have handled Gomez's fierce shot. The cheers returned when De Sanctis dived to his left to save Gomez's weakly hit spot-kick.

Muller should have given Bayern the lead on 54 minutes but poked his effort wide of goal after another dangerous corner produced an almighty scramble in the Napoli area.

Napoli, back in Europe's premier competition for the first time since the days of Diego Maradona, struggled to muster a clear-cut opening but managed to keep Bayern at bay to take something from a match that had begun so badly.

"When I heard Manchester City had scored in the last minute I just thought, 'that's football'," said Napoli President Aurelio De Laurentiis, whose side would have been three points ahead of the English club if Sergio Aguero had not scored a late winner against Villarreal. "We have nothing to lose. We are young and strong. Maybe a draw will do against City."

[RomaShield27]

http://www.sabotagetimes.com/football-s ... barcelona/?

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Friday 4 November, 2011 – http://www.football-italia.net/blogs/rp136.html?

Is squad rotation the key issue behind Napoli’s inconsistency this season? A look at the past may make difficult reading for the Azzurri, says Rob Paton

Balancing Napoli’s first foray into the European Cup in 21 years with an anticipated top-three finish in the League has proven problematic for Walter Mazzarri. A creditable Champions League debut, a second Serie A win over Milan in 17 years and a first away to Inter in as many seasons has been matched with defeats to Chievo, Parma and Catania.

Even as Mazzarri rested just two players for the poor 0-0 with Fiorentina and fielded a first-choice XI for the shock home reverse to Parma, focus has remained – much to the Coach’s ire – on his rotation policy. Markedly poor performances from deputising defenders such as Ignacio Fideleff have added weight to the media’s criticism, as have the struggles Mario Santana, Giuseppe Mascara and Goran Pandev have had in forming an understanding tantamount to that of Mazzarri’s first-choice forward-line.

Mazzarri refuses to blame the rotation of players that has seen him make four, five and seven changes for games that the team have subsequently dropped points in. Some are asking that given the likes of Edinson Cavani managed 47 appearances and Ezequiel Lavezzi 42, and eight more players reached at least 40 games in a 50-game 2010-11 season, whether such dramatic rotation is even needed.

Pertinently then, in a season that with Napoli in the Champions League has had pundits thinking back to their last successful spell as a club, a look back to that era actually backs up Mazzarri’s continued faith in rotating players.

“Fans challenged me even if I didn’t play the best players in a friendly. I would only rest players in the case of injuries that they could not recover from inside three days,” reminisced Napoli’s 1987 Scudetto and Coppa Italia and 1989 UEFA Cup-winning Coach Ottavio Bianchi this week. The 68-year-old tactician provides an interesting example to serve as a reminder that for all the nostalgia that surrounds that late 1980s at the club, that even then squad rotation was a debatable, equally unsolvable issue.

The 1988-89 season was the club’s third consecutive term in Europe, but the first that they had managed to get past the first round. Subsequently winning the competition, in a season that the team were expected to again fight for Serie A, Bianchi is insistent that in contrast to Mazzarri, he didn’t rest players. He claims that Diego Maradona, for example, missed just two League games in the season run-in and both only due to injury.

Significantly and perhaps as a result of this selection policy, from the start of March 1989 and parallel to the team’s progress through the UEFA Cup quarter and semi-finals, Napoli dropped points in four of six League games played. A two-point gap from table-topping – and record-breaking – Inter was subsequently extended to seven, and in a season where two points was awarded for a win, it was a deficit the Azzurri never recovered from as they finished second.

Similarly, the following season under Bianchi’s successor Albertino Bigon, it is arguable to suggest that their Scudetto success was only possible after early European disappointment. After dropping points in six games either before or after a UEFA Cup tie in 1989-90, a third round December European elimination saw the team lose just three of the 19 remaining League games on the way to winning a second Scudetto.

Not even Maradona’s Napoli – regular title challengers – achieved duel domestic and European runs. With this in mind, it is both understandable that Mazzarri is defensive of his rotation policy and questionable that he is implementing it when historically only the most-experienced Italian teams – and never Napoli – have pulled it off.

It is double-edged then, that Mazzarri can count on both Bianchi’s example and his backing that rotation is a necessity to this landmark season and not a contributing factor to their inconsistency. The veteran, who also played for the team in the 1960s, draws an ominous comparison with the Napoli of that era – rather than of the 1980s – when concluding the Partenopei’s reasons for fault this season.

“I’m afraid Napoli may have returned to the days of [Omar] Sivori and [Jose] Altafini, when it was enough to beat a big name to consider the whole season a success.”

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Roberto Mancini takes his side into a Champions League tie against Italian opponents who are also a revival in sky blue

www.guardian.co.uk, Saturday 19 November 2011 23.00 GMT, Paolo Bandini


There will be a full house at Napoli's Stadio San Paolo on Tuesday night, when the Champions League visit of Manchester City is expected to generate the Italian club's highest-ever gate receipts for a single match. But even if every seat in the house is occupied, the crowd will still be smaller than that which turned up on 5 July 1984 – on a day when Napoli were not even playing.

Depending who you believe, that day somewhere between 70,000 and 90,000 fans were present – on a weekday, no less – to see Diego Armando Maradona make his first public appearance as a Napoli player, treating them to a display of flicks and tricks before thanking them for such a warm welcome. "I want to be an idol to the poor children of Naples," he said. "They are as I was in Buenos Aires."Such a turnout is no longer possible in a stadium that is now all seats and holds 60,000 – though it is questionable whether even this entertaining Napoli side have captured the imagination quite in the manner of El Pibe de Oro. Napoli had won the Coppa Italia twice before the Argentinian arrived, but little else. With him they became Italian champions in 1987 and 1990, as well as the Uefa Cup winners in 1989.

So out-of-control were the celebrations of that first Scudetto that even gravestones were daubed with messages insisting "you don't know what you're missing". Maradona certainly fulfilled his ambition of becoming an icon to the people of Naples, too. As John Foot notes in his thorough history of the Italian game, Calcio, in one parish as many as 25% of all newborn boys were being christened Diego.

But Maradona's fortunes would turn, the player fleeing the country in 1991 after being handed a 15-month ban for cocaine use. Napoli's decline was more gradual, the team finishing fourth the next season before commencing a protracted and painful fall from grace, precipitated by boardroom turmoil and mounting debts.

In 1993 the team's president, Corrado Ferlaino, stood down in the wake of corruption charges and a year later he handed over his 93% share in the club to new owners on the condition that they addressed the club's debts of more than 50bn lira. And yet, another nine months on Ferlaino would win back his holding in the club, having argued successfully in court that his successors had failed to live up to their side of the bargain.

Napoli, by this stage, were at serious risk of bankruptcy, despite Gianfranco Zola and Ciro Ferrara leaving. Fabio Cannavaro and Benito Carbone would be the next to go, and performances continued to deteriorate. In 1998 they were relegated, finishing bottom of Serie A. Although the Partenopei would be promoted again two years later, they immediately dropped back down. Finally, in 2004, Napoli went bust. The club had changed hands twice more by that stage – passing first to Giorgio Corbelli and then the hotel magnate Salvatore Naldi, but neither had been able to resolve the mounting financial problems. Dwindling attendances did not help the situation. A team that guaranteed full houses during in Maradona's heyday was now drawing fewer than 14,500 fans. And yet rather than heralding the end for Napoli, bankruptcy brought a bright beginning.

In early September – just in time for the new season – the club's sporting rights were purchased by the film producer Aurelio De Laurentiis and transferred to his newly founded club, Napoli Soccer. Thanks to legislation designed to protect the heritage of cities and towns whose teams fail for financial reasons, they were put into Serie C1, the third tier.

With a squad that had been thrown together in a matter of days before the start of the season, Napoli finished fifth before losing to Avellino in the play-off final. Despite the modest football on show, the fanbase was energised. Napoli's average attendance figure for the season was more than 37,000 a game, and 62,058 fans packed into the San Paolo for their 2-0 win over Reggiana in February.

Such backing strengthened De Laurentiis's conviction, the owner rebuilding the playing staff with the help of the director Pierpaolo Marino, a highly respected identifier of talent. Over the next two years the club recorded consecutive promotions, with De Laurentiis restoring the club's original name – Società Sportiva Calcio Napoli – immediately upon the return to Serie B.

Even since the return to Serie A in 2007, Napoli's has been a story of almost constant progress – the team only once (in 2008-09) finishing in a worse position than the year before. Although De Laurentiis let Marino go in September 2009, by that point the squad had been transformed by the arrivals of the Slovakia international Marek Hamsik and Argentina's Ezequiel Lavezzi.

Perhaps more significantly, a few weeks after Marino's departure, De Laurentiis parted ways with Roberto Donadoni, naming Walter Mazzarri – a 48-year-old Tuscan who had led Sampdoria to the Coppa Italia final – as the club's third manager in eight months. The transformation was immediate, Mazzarri succeeding where Donadoni had failed in shaping a young and athletic group into an effective counterattacking unit – capitalising on the pace offered by Lavezzi and Hamsik, as well as that of the team's wing-backs Christian Maggio and Andrea Dossena, following the latter's move from Liverfekkin'wankscum in January.

Under Mazzarri, Napoli went on to finish sixth. Then, in the summer, came the real coup. Many fans were up in arms when Fabio Quagliarella was sold to Juventus, but in his stead arrived Edinson Cavani. The baby-faced forward had looked a competent if unspectacular player in three-and-a-half seasons at Palermo, but under Mazzarri he thrived – finding the first coach of his career willing to play him as an out-and-out striker, rather than a deeper-lying forward.

"We took him for a madman when he compared himself to Ibrahimovic and Rooney," admitted La Gazzetta dello Sport as Cavani blasted his way to 33 goals in 47 games – including hat-tricks against Juventus and Lazio – leading his team to a title challenge and third-place finish. In Naples they showed their appreciation by naming a calzone in his honour and preparing banners demanding "Sainthood Now" for the Uruguayan, an evangelical Christian. Inevitably, and despite their different playing styles, comparisons began to be drawn with Maradona.The Argentinian, of course, was no saint – although an entire religion has been created in his honour. Cavani has a little way to go yet to achieve that sort of status (though it is only fair to note that Maradona's Napoli won only one two-legged European Cup tie in two attempts). But if he can follow up the goal he scored at Etihad Stadium in September with a winner against City on Tuesday, he may just take a big step in that direction.

[Lupa]

De Laurentis: "Il successo di questa sera dimostra due cose: la prima è che con i soldi forse non si fa sempre tutto, anche con i bilanci in ordine si può andare abbastanza lontano. La seconda è che il tessuto connettivo del Napoli è importante e può dare soddisfazioni".

Take *that* Man shitty.

[Messinterista]

Well done Napoli!

[RomaShield27]

Grazie, Napoli, great win, it was a great game and they fully deserved it.

http://english.gazzetta.it/Football/22- ... 6457.shtml

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Italy celebrates after Napoli 'savage' the rich men of Manchester City
'Sometimes miracles do happen' – Italian press hails Napoli's unexpected Champions League victory

http://www.guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 23 November 2011 11.50 GMT, Paolo Bandini

Victory over Manchester City was not enough to guarantee Napoli progress to the Champions League knockout stage, but it was enough to spark significant celebrations across the city and the rest of Italy. Few had expected Napoli to have their fate in their own hands at this stage of a group featuring City, Bayern Munich and Villarreal. "Even a piece of marble would have given in to the emotion," writes Maurizio Crosetti in La Repubblica of a mad night at the Stadio San Paolo.

Napoli's opponents, after all, had been not only the Premiershit leaders but also one of the most expensively assembled ensembles the world has ever seen. It was a point that the Italian press were keen to linger on as they looked back on the night's events. "That City may be rich," notes Luigi Garlando in Wednesday morning's Gazzetta dello Sport, "But the city of Naples tonight is far richer – with joy and with dreams."

"Sometimes miracles do happen," proclaims Il Mattino, while Fabrizio Bocca in La Repubblica also reflects on the unlikeliness of such a scenario. "At this point Napoli ought to have been dead and buried in the notorious Group A, which everyone back at the draw in August greeted as unfortunate and simply insurmountable for [Walter] Mazzarri's Napoli," he says. "Sometimes you need to go at that wall of scepticism around you with a pick axe. Napoli did just that, savaging the team of the moment, City, who have been trotting around England and Europe with all these great champions and with a €250m hole in their finances – created in just one year."

Indeed, for all their spending, there was widespread agreement that City had been a rather underwhelming proposition. "English TV must have a system that speeds up the images when they broadcast Premiershit games," writes Marco Ansaldo in La Stampa. "There is no other way to explain why the Manchester City we've seen running on TV all season were instead only walking, with a slowness of step, passing and thoughts that surprised us."

That sentiment is reflected in Gazzetta's ratings, where Roberto Mancini receives five out of 10 for his performance as manager. "Having disembarked in Naples as a new footballing pope, Mancini leaves as a cardinal," reflects Sebastiano Vernazza. "Too much possession just for the sake of it." His colleague Garlando adds: "Manchester [City], strengthened by the €910m spent by Sheikh Mansour, dictated the play for a long time, but often with the presumptuousness of [the] well-to-do: their attitude in possession was leisurely and fanciful."

But more than City's negatives, of course, they were keen to dwell on the positives for a Napoli side who were playing in the third tier as recently as the 2005-06 season. "Who would have dreamed of such a thing, five years ago?" exclaims Stefano Agresti in Corriere dello Sport. "A madman, maybe. Or perhaps not even him." In Il Giornale, Marcello Di Dio says: "In one evening Napoli transformed themselves from the ugly duckling of the group into a beautiful swan ready to open its wings."

Back in La Repubblica, meanwhile, Crosetti believes Mazzarri's side should be proud of their football heritage. "Mazzarri should not be offended if he hears people talking about his team playing 'Italian style'," says Crosetti, referencing how Napoli allowed City to keep so much possession. "Through history, this approach has led to many triumphs – World Cups, Champions Leagues – even against opponents who seemed unbeatable. Napoli is the modern interpreter of this tradition. They don't use catenaccio, but they know how to close themselves up and then inject some venom."

----------------------

http://fourfourtwo.com/news/championsle ... fault.aspx?

http://napoli.theoffside.com/team-news/ ... -city.html?

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Footballers increasingly becoming crime victims
Posted by Paolo Bandini under Serie A on Nov 29, 2011

http://blogs.thescore.com/footyblog/201 ... e-victims/

Aurelio De Laurentiis is rarely short of an opinion. From informing the world that “English women don’t wash their genitalia” to defining Lionel Messi as a “cretin”, the Napoli owner has never been backwards about coming forward when he has something to get off his chest. Which is why, when Ezequiel Lavezzi’s girlfriend Yanina Screpante took to Twitter a few nights ago, defining Naples as a “shit city” and threatening to take her other half elsewhere, you knew it was only a matter of time before he issued a response.

Screpante was understandably distraught at the time of her outburst, having just been robbed at gunpoint, but De Laurentiis was utterly without sympathy. “In a climate of recession I think you should not go around with a Rolex on your arm,” he declared of the golden watch – a gift from Lavezzi – that Screpante had stolen. “Dear Yanina, I am sorry, it is reasonable that you should take fright, but maybe you are not yet Neapolitan enough. At times you can think you are untouchable just because you are Lavezzi’s other half.”

De Laurentiis’s relationship with the original half of Lavezzi has been combustible enough down the years, the owner noting his forward’s apparent enthusiasm for the Naples nightlife in 2009 with the infamous words: “If you are an athlete you don’t go out drinking at night then see prostitutes.” When the same player was delayed in returning from international duty later that year due to a misplaced passport, he growled: “We are tired of having to deal with careless Argentines and their scant professionalism.”

Yet while many observers might feel De Laurentiis’s hard-line approach has worked with Lavezzi – the player evolving in the intervening period from a flaky and erratic performer into one with drive and consistency who has helped propel Napoli into the Champions League – he might on this occasion be facing up to a problem beyond his control. Screpante later apologised, saying she had been distressed and retained great affection for the city. But later that evening, Lavezzi’s agent Alejandro Manzoni painted a somewhat different picture.

“Naples is not a safe city,” he insisted, noting how Napoli’s other stars had been similarly targeted. Just last week Marek Hamsik’s pregnant wife had her car stolen at gunpoint, while her husband himself has previously had a watch taken under similar circumstances while driving in the city. Edinson Cavani’s house was burgled while he was away on international duty with Uruguay last month.

It was a thread which has been picked up by a number of the leading newspapers. Even La Repubblica, less prone to sensationalism than many other Italian titles, ran with a lengthy article on how footballers had been targeted by the city’s criminal element. “There are no untouchables in the Malanapoli,” wrote Giovanni Marino, utilising a cover-all term for the Naples underworld. “Indeed, [footballers] might be first on the list. Rich and famous footballers; stars with millionaire salaries.”

As Marino would later acknowledge, footballers might enjoy some advantages over regular victims of crime. It was widely reported that Hamsik’s stolen watch was returned to him once associates of the criminals in question found out where it had come from (though this story remains unconfirmed), and famously Diego Maradona had a whole collection of wrist-pieces brought back to him after they were snatched from the Bank of Naples during his time in the city.

But Even Maradona, a man who had been photographed fraternising (and even sitting in a jacuzzi) with Camorra leaders before the end of his time in Naples, did not get back the item he cherished most – his Balon d’Or. The former gang boss Salvatore Lo Russo has since claimed to have attempted to recover the item, only to discover that it had already been melted down into a gold bar.

Of course, crime is hardly a uniquely Neapolitan problem. In the last month, both of Roma’s Juan and Gabriel Heinze have had their homes broken into, while Inter’s Lucio had his BMW stolen by a man pretending to work as a valet in Milan’s Porta Romana (Cristian Vieri, incidentally, had his Porsche Cayenne in an identical ruse back in his playing days for the club). As Goffredo Buccini notes in Corriere della Sera: “We could send out two teams [of footballing crime victims] with a full set of subs – from Eto’o to Brehme, from Zalayeta to Menez, from Ronaldinho to Sneijder.”

Many would argue, indeed, that Naples is no more dangerous than the rest of the peninsula. At time of writing, 48% of respondents to a poll on La Repubblica’s website believe Naples is more violent than Italy’s other major cities, but 49% say it is no worse than Rome or Milan (3% don’t know). De Laurentiis himself, in his response to Screpante, had proclaimed the former as Italy’s “capital of crime” (though he might be a touch biased).

But perception does not always conform to reality, and in spite of her retraction it is easy to see how Screpante’s view of Naples might have changed irreversibly after such an event. Manzoni would suggest more than once during his round of interviews that his client’s girlfriend is now afraid to leave the house on her own. This, he argued, becomes an even bigger problem in the context of Lavezzi’s lifestyle as a whole.

“Lavezzi’s private life is difficult,” Manzoni said. “Pocho the footballer has everything in Naples: he is loved by the fans, he is supported, he feels like a protagonist for his team. But as regards Pocho the man … my client has been living for four years in his house, without his son – who lives in Argentina, and who cannot even be taken to the park when he does come to visit because they will be mobbed … he cannot leave his house and now his girlfriend is afraid to go out on her own.”

Later the same evening he would insist in another interview that Lavezzi “is not thinking of leaving Napoli”, though that too has the whiff of a tactical manoeuvre. It is inconceivable that De Laurentiis would consider selling such an integral figure in the January transfer window. It is far less inconceivable that the agent is beginning to lay the groundwork for a transfer further down the line.
How could Lavezzi not want to leave, after all, if the picture was truly as bleak as his agent suggests? Similarly, how could Cavani not be at least have considered – even if only momentarily – the possibility of fleeing to a different city, when he himself was so shaken up by the burglary at his house that he immediately relocated to a new, more central property which is guarded day and night by armed security?

There is no doubt that both players are enjoying their football at the moment, reveling in their roles in the team which De Laurentiis has built as well as the way in which they have been embraced by the team’s fans. With Champions League money pouring in this season and a sensible wage structure in place, there is also no financial reason why the owner would have to sell – even if it is clear that such players have caught the eye of the world’s richest clubs.

But not every problem can be solved with deep pockets, nor even with a sharp tongue. And right now his players are wrestling with an issue far greater than football: fear.

Paolo Bandini covers Italian football for guardian.co.uk and Astro SuperSport, as well as The Score. You can follow him on Twitter @Paolo_Bandini.

[Lupa]

Well done, Napoli, getting through the group stage in a tough group in CL.

[RomaShield27]

Napoli offer €13m for Vargas
Thursday December 15 2011 – By Football Italia staff – http://www.football-italia.net/node/13836?

Napoli are reportedly stepping up their bid for Eduardo Vargas, flying out to Chile with a €13m offer to beat the competition. The Universidad de Chile striker has attracted interest from clubs all over Europe, including Inter, Roma and Juventus.

According to La Segunda newspaper in Chile, Napoli aim to secure the starlet’s signature before a bidding war can truly break out.

Chief scout Maurizio Micheli reportedly met with Universidad intermediaries in a Santiago de Chile hotel on Wednesday.

Napoli proposed €13m to bring in Vargas and stave off competition from Arsenal and Chelsea.

The Partenopei would also be happy to leave him in Chile until the summer.

[RomaShield27]

Reports that Napoli have agreed a deal to sign this Vargas, meant to be very good:

Report: Napoli sign Vargas
Saturday December 17 2011 - http://www.football-italia.net/node/13892

Chilean media claim that Napoli have secured a €12m deal for hot property Eduardo Vargas. There were already reports over the last few days that the Partenopei had sent directors out to negotiate with Universidad de Chile, beating competition from the likes of Inter, Roma and Chelsea.

This evening elements of the Chilean media claim Vargas has already agreed a €12m transfer to the San Paolo.

Canal 24H announced “Vargas is a Napoli player. The Universidad striker has completed his transfer to the Azzurri for $15m.”

They also claimed Universidad wanted to keep the 22-year-old until June 2012 so he could take part in the Copa Libertadores, but he pushed for an immediate move.

Edu Vargas is among the nominees for the South American Player of the Year award and has been compared to Alexis Sanchez.

[RomaShield27]

Napoli's new signing Vargas arriving at Fiumicino:

http://sport.sky.it/sport/calcio_italia ... um=twitter

[forzaitalia]

Very nice TV presenter

He'll be eligible for the Champions League, will he?

[RomaShield27]

Haha, yeh i was thinking the same thing alright, very nice. I think he will be eligible for the CL alright as he hasn't played in Europe before, so once they include him in their squad list he should be ok.