“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Napoli have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.16 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
A performance of 8.36 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Player ratings28 Dec 2026
Rasmus Højlund was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.10. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Half the programme played, position 6, 36 on the board. Doubling it is the sum every supporter has done and the only one nobody at the club will do out loud.
A 2‑0 win over Cittadella, and the draw for the next round can be watched with some interest for once.
Match9 Dec 2026
Alisson Santos wins it after the whistle should have gone
100 minutes played. Alisson Santos found the finish in time that only existed because of earlier delays, and Cittadella went from a point to nothing inside one movement.
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.57 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
At 23 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Kevin De Bruyne. 2‑0 against Lecce, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
3 straight away victories. Sides that win away are usually sides that can defend and can counter, and the table has begun to reflect what those journeys have earned.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Napoli will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Napoli have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.82 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Napoli heard it as anything else.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Franco Costantino is living that version at Napoli, and it tends to show in the first month.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 59 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Antonio Vergara is 23, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Napoli can tell you which week it ends in.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Napoli this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The dugout19 Oct 2026
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑1 Tommaso Donadoni left the room before anybody could ask which.
Successful dribbles: 13. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
In brief
Loan watchThe goals keep arriving from Cyril Ngonge’s exile
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 113 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Napoli can pretend not to have heard.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 5 arrived, 5 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Napoli hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Napoli asked and Lecce said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
6 call-ups is a compliment to the squad and a headache for the man running it. He will get them back in a fortnight, tired, in various states of repair.
At 21 he was better than everybody his age in the division for four weeks running, which is harder than one good afternoon. Napoli will try not to make too much of it.
Napoli asked and AC Milan said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
The deal with Godoy Cruz is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Rasmus Højlund provided it, and the 9.17 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
“It was not right for me. I am not going to explain why to anybody except the people I owe an explanation to.” A deal agreed between two clubs, and a player who declined to be part of it.
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.20 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Napoli hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
The name of Stanislav Lobotka has come up in conversations Napoli were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Napoli, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room and never have. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and at Napoli that is a harder question to answer.