A reality completely erased by the De Laurentiis presidency.
In the 1980s, members of Napoli’s youth sector were given the opportunity to collaborate, as ball boys, during the first team’s matches. On the day of the first scudetto, the famous 1-1 against Roberto Baggio’s Fiorentina, a moment of glory was carved out not only for Maradona and his teammates, but also for the young footballers holed up in the moat of a deafening San Paolo before the arrival of the teams.
Dreaming eyes of innocent children who were about to experience a day destined to remain engraved in history. The commentator reviews them one by one: the first to speak is Giuseppe Trotta, in his first year in blue, then Salvatore Verde from Boscotrecase, then Marco Petito, former Italsider and gradually all the others. They will speak later Raffaele Ametrano (midfielder who will debut with Napoli and will also become part of Trapattoni’s glorious Juventus), the central Gaetano De Rosa, who will spend most of his career between the first and second series with Bari and Reggina, the stopper Ciro Caruso whose talent is lost due to a torn meniscus, then a cruciate ligament and finally a torn right knee.
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Among them, however, a fourteen-year-old boy stands out, with light eyes and unusual shyness. He started out on the Ilva pitch in Bagnoli, then joined the Neapolitan youth sector and will make his debut with the big boys in March ’93, alongside his childhood idol. Ciro Ferrara. Then came the debut in the UEFA Cup, the painful farewell due to the club’s financial problems, the move to the North, Juve, the championships and, finally, the Ballon d’Or. Fabio Cannavarostill today, represents the greatest footballer that a basin full of talent like the Neapolitan hinterland has ever given birth to since we can remember.
Even in the 90s, Napoli’s youth sector continued to represent a point of reference for the city’s talents, amidst the thousand economic difficulties and the clutches of clubs from the centre-north, which benefited from being able to offer a better life perspective to both the players and any accompanying families. It is in fact in the historic Centro Paradiso in Soccavo that the director Fabio Liverani, the goalkeeper Ferdinando Coppola, Paolo Cannavaro himself, the defender Guglielmo Stendardo and the striker Antonio Floro Flores took their first steps.
What remains of the Centro Paradiso in Soccavo.
Of that pagan temple where the champions of the first championship enjoyed playing in the mud, surrounded by journalists and fans, all that remains is an old rusty gate and an expanse of brushwood. The only distinctly visible thing remains a posthumous mural depicting little Dalma, Maradona’s eldest daughter, gently tucking a flower into her father Diego’s sock. The De Laurentiis family, from the day of the acquisition of the club to today, has never made a proposal to purchase and redevelop the area, preferring to relocate theheadquarter of the club in the province of Caserta.
He’ll take care of it street urchin Cannavaro to give a new life to the structure: he purchased it a month ago in the presence of Mayor Manfredi and all the municipal authorities. The intent of the blue champion is to create a academy elite football, with ultra-modern and eco-sustainable technology. What we hoped the city club, now at the top in both Italy and Europe, would do, a private citizen will do.
The proclaimed but never born “street urchin”
The position towards the youth sector of the patron Aurelio De Laurentiis, from the first days of presidency, seemed to be that of wanting to invest massively in local talents, following the model of Roma or self sustainability of Atalanta. However, no progress has ever been made in the last twenty years.
The famous “scugnizzeria”, a project that winked at the Barcelona cantera, not only never saw the light, but was also the subject of a sensational backtracking by the ADL itself: “I am for the change, but in life there are priorities and now there are others, especially from an economic point of view. There are infiltrations in the area and the children’s parents understand it. For me it’s not a problem of structures: we moved them from Castel Volturno so as not to give them the footballer with the big car as an example. I tried to buy other structures, but it was not possible”
The Napoli youth teams, in fact, seem like real nomadic populations. The younger ones train at the Kennedy fields in the Camaldoli area, while the Primavera, which had the Ianniello stadium in Frattamaggiore as its base camp, was forced to move to the Piccoli in Cercola after the eviction order issued by the province. In short, the club has never failed to show signs of total disinterest in what is not the first team and does not guarantee immediate income.
Nobody is asking Napoli to reach the levels of City Academy of Manchester City or The Farmhouse, but that the Italian club can represent a point of reference for young Neapolitans and Campania, preventing the exodus towards other regions. The million that SSC Napoli invests in the growth of young players is a paltry sum that gives no hope for the future. The sporting results are unfortunately there for all to see. The task entrusted to Gianluca Grava, former Italian defender appointed technical manager of the youth sector after his retirement, proved to be more difficult than expected. Over the last five years, the Primavera’s Azzurri have changed seven managers and have been relegated on three occasions. In the Youth League they achieved only three victories in twenty-eight matches played.
Talents on the run
The club therefore rejects the vision that sees investing in youth, infrastructure and technical staff as a strategy that creates value. That’s why Lorenzo Insigne he still remains the only product of the Neapolitan youth sector to whom the doors of the first team were concretely opened during Aurelian’s twenty years.
Unfortunately, technical and economic choices lead towards another path. Napoli, like many other Italian clubs, now prefers to explore the market rather than looking first at home. The lack of presence in the area meant that Fabiano Parisi, born in Solofra, was intercepted by the radars of Empoli’s highly skilled scouts; that the Stabia football schools produced the three Esposito brothers and the current goalkeeper of the Italian national team and PSG Gianluigi Donnarumma without the top club in Southern Italy lifting a finger; that for Luca D’Andreagold at the Under 19 European Championships with the Italian national team, Napoli could not satisfy the prospects of personal growth before footballing.
Luca D’Andrea with the U19 European Championship trophy won last summer.
Precisely regarding the Sassuolo talent, now on loan to Catanzaro, his discoverer Stefano Cirillo recently told how the Azzurri tried to convince the boy’s father to accept Napoli, but there was no way: “In Campania there is a talent drain. We need to convince society to do more or the kids will continue to get out of hand. The youth sector managers do a lot but they don’t have the economic strength to block the players”
The most striking, however, is the story of Giuseppe Ambrosino, a striker owned by Napoli, now on loan in Serie B at Catanzaro and fresh from his debut with the Under 21 national team. Native of Procida, Ambrosino has spent years shuttling between the island and Naples to train, spending almost all of his adolescence on ferries. Furthermore, Grava has also been included in Mazzarri’s staff, who will probably leave the youth sector without a reference figure.
Meanwhile, in the first team those who have not found accommodation elsewhere due to roster issues are struggling to find space. Alessandro Zanoliwho up to now has only played thirty minutes and has the misfortune of having to compete for a shirt with Di Lorenzo, whose place is practically untouchable, while Zerbin, whose qualities however do not warm the hearts of experts and fans, tramples on the same areas of the pitch as Khvicha Kvaratskhelia. Stay in the rear Gianluca Gaetano, the social man of Napoli who however sees the pitch with his lantern. Born in 2000, a native of Cimitile and a huge Azzurri fan, he is an offensive midfielder who combines running and technique with an excellent sense of goal. Carlo Ancelotti fell in love with him after the 17 goals he scored between the championship and Youth League with the Under 19s, to the point of giving him his debut in both Serie A and the Champions League. The three years of training in Cremona (with which he obtained promotion to the top flight) earned him a stay in the squad last season, contributing to the triumphant ride towards the Scudetto with the beautiful goal scored against Inter.
This year would (should have been) the season of definitive consecration; instead, it score he scored less than half an hour of play spent on the pitch and a goal, scored in the illusory goleada in Lecce. The flame of who could break the curse of no prophet in his homeland, which left no escape even for those who represented Napoli for a long decade, is little by little increasingly dim. The famous words of Eduardo De Filippo therefore come to mind. To some young actors who asked for clarification on their future, the director and playwright replied, with a touch of melancholy: “fuitevenne ‘a Naples”.
Is this, therefore, the destiny that awaits those who, having the ability, want to concretely pursue the dream of becoming a footballer? A sad thought, which brings to mind the look of little Cannavaro on the day of the first championship, and what that boy from Fuorigrotta would have represented for Naples, for Italy and for the entire world of football in the years to come.
2023-11-27 16:04:14
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