EURO FILES: Napoli hope former boss Walter Mazzarri can bring fresh flavour on his return to the club… the Serie A champions need more than ‘reheated soup’ to turn their season around

• Mazzarri, who managed Napoli 2009 to 2013, led Watford to a 17th place finish
• The reigning Scudetto champions face Inter Milan and Juventus in league next
• Inside Postecoglou’s Tottenham: IAKO looks at culture and philosophy changes

Nostalgia and romance were in the air in Naples this week. Fabio Cannavaro has bought the club’s old training ground and plans to turn the wasteland, disused for 20 years, into a centre of excellence for young Napoli players.

Cannavaro was a youth trainee at the Centro Paradiso back when Diego Maradona was the first team’s superstar — there is still a mural of the Argentine with his then young daughter Dalma on one of the crumbling walls.

‘I want to restore it to its former beauty for the young people of the neighbourhood,’ Cannavaro said. ‘The targets I had when I played here were surpassed beyond my imagining. I used to turn up to training on the Vespa that the woman who is now my wife lent me, and then I switched to a Fiat Uno. I was already living the dream.’

Just as nostalgic, but nowhere near as romantic has been the club’s decision last week to bring back former Watford boss Walter Mazzarri, who managed Napoli from 2009 to 2013.

Napoli’s defence of their first Scudetto in 33 years was always going to be difficult, but a managerial change in November, and with Real Madrid, Inter Milan and Juventus in three of their next four games, suggests their title defence could turn out to be even worse than expected.

Former Watford boss Walter Mazzarri managed Italian giants Napoli between 2009 and 2013

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He had risen to the top in Italy before arriving at Vicarage Road in 2016. He only lasted a year — leading Watford to a 17th-placed Premier League finish with an uninspiring brand of football that meant Hornets fans were not particularly sorry to see him go.

Four good years at Napoli had meant Inter went chasing after him and, much to the ire of Napoli owner Aurelio De Laurentiis, he walked away. The jilted De Laurentiis said: ‘If your wife wants to sleep with someone else, what can you do; she’ll sleep with someone else.’

Inter sacked him after a year and a half — it was unsustainable not being able to read his name out before the game because of the whistles it provoked in the stadium.

After Watford, he initially led Torino into Europe but later got the sack. He then coached Cagliari for most of the 2021-22 season but was fired just before they were relegated. ‘I don’t like reheated soup,’ Di Laurentiis has said in the past regarding bringing former players back, a commonly used phrase in Italian football to describe returning heroes.

This time conservatism over picking someone untried has seen him go against that belief.

At least Mazzarri doesn’t have to directly follow Luciano Spalletti, who walked away in the summer in the best possible way — having won the league, and to take charge of the national team.

Rudi Garcia accepted that poisoned chalice and then made it even harder to swallow by breaking the two biggest rules in following a successful manager: he had a dreadful record at home, and he fell out with Spalletti’s star players. He upset Victor Osimhen and Khvicha Kvaratskhelia by subbing them and rotating them as if they were squad men and not the individuals who drove Napoli to win the title.

The reigning Serie A champions have so far struggled to find their form this season

He even benched Kvaratskhelia in a must-win game against Empoli before the international break. De Laurentiis was in the dressing room at half-time, as the pressure ramped up on Garcia. He wasn’t happy with the 0-0 score. When 17th-placed Empoli won it in the 91st minute, Garcia’s four-month stint was up.

Napoli fans are now waiting to find out which version of Mazzarri turns up. The man who created a side, led by Edinson Cavani, Ezequiel Lavezzi and Marek Hamsik, competitive in Europe, or the coach who barely kept Watford up.

The big game in Italy this weekend is leaders Inter visiting second-placed Juventus. But the 62-year-old’s return, away to fifth-placed Atalanta, has stolen many of the headlines.

Mazzarri only has a seven-month contract but no wins in those first four difficult games would probably put even that flimsy commitment to the test.

Cannavaro, who is yet to get a chance in Europe having coached in China and Saudi Arabia, and Francesco Farioli, the 34-year-old Italian coach driving Nice up Ligue 1, will be watching.

If Mazzarri fails then something fresh will be on the menu to replace the reheated soup.

Clubs are just as guilty for putting players at risk

Barcelona were furious over the knee injury Gavi sustained for Spain on Sunday that will keep him out for at least nine months.

In other news from the same day, Barcelona announced they are flying to the US to play a friendly on December 21, just a day after they play their final La Liga game of 2023.

The match against Mexico’s Club America in Dallas should raise about £4.3million, but it is the last thing Xavi and his players need.

Gavi was one of only two players who started both of Spain’s final European Championship qualifiers and Barca felt his inclusion in the second match unnecessary.

The sight of the apparently indestructible 19-year-old in tears on the side of the pitch on Sunday and tales from the dressing room of him crying, ‘Why me?’ made everyone in Spain feel for him, regardless of club colours. Gavi (right) will miss the Euros and Olympics and, because of additional damage to the meniscus, he could now be a year away from being 100 per cent again.

Gavi reacts after injuring his knee during Spain’s qualifying match against Georgia

But the easy argument from Barcelona that it’s the weight of international football fixtures that causes the injuries falls down. Clubs are just as guilty of squeezing the players dry, as Barca’s dash to the Cotton Bowl Stadium four days before Christmas reminds us.

Ageless Modric still has crucial role for Madrid 

Luka Modric played his part in Croatia’s 1-0 win over Armenia on Tuesday in Zagreb and can now look forward to his ninth major tournament with his country — after four World Cups and four Euros.

Last summer, it seemed he might walk away from Real Madrid and the club certainly would not have stood in his way. They had just signed Jude Bellingham and with Eduardo Camavinga’s progress demanding a bigger role, it was hard to see how he would get game time.

But he wanted to stay and despite only starting two matches in the first two months of the season, the 38-year-old kept his head down and his complaints respectful and between himself and Madrid boss Carlo Ancelotti. He knew his time would come.

Now, off the back of that international success, he becomes more important than ever for Real Madrid, who must do without the injured Camavinga for the rest of the year and will not want to over-burden Jude Bellingham, just back from his shoulder dislocation.

Luka Modric has seen his playing time reduced at the club following the signing of Bellingham

With 23 club trophies to his name, only Karim Benzema and Marcelo have won more at Madrid. If Modric wins two more cups this season to match his former team-mates he might just say: ‘Right, now I’m ready to leave.’ And he will exit via Euro 2024 in Germany.

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