Napoli-Osimhen, the hour of truth passes through Mbappé

As in a classic western, there are only two contenders left in the final scene. Victor Osimhen’s future is at stake. “The only one who can take him at this point is PSG,” says Aurelio De Laurentiis, as if to challenge the new masters of football steam: the two of us. And even if from a financial point of view there is no race between those who find ways to constantly circumvent the limits of fair play and those who focus instead on the sustainability of the financial statements. The Napoli president almost seems to want to “provoke” the contenders: “The only club that could take him home is Paris Saint-Germain. So if Nasser Al-Khelaïfi wants to come up with a couple of hundred, we’ll wait and then evaluate”. The blue patron presents the new shirt with the Scudetto and a project to relaunch the Napoli brand worldwide and naturally the presence of a champion like the Nigerian becomes important: “I’ve already told you that Osimhen will wear this shirt, if an offer should arrive more than indecent we will get over it and there will certainly be a very strong one who can replace him. But I believe that Osimhen will still remain in the next year. In short, when the PSG offered one hundred million and De Laurentiis said no, doubling the request, by now a month ago, the Napoli patron began a long game of poker that will last at least throughout July, i.e. the period it will take to understand whether or not Mbappé will stay in Paris.

frozen renewal

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In fact, even if direct relations with the agent Roberto Calenda are continuous, only after the PSG has withdrawn, will De Laurentiis sit down with the Osimhen representative to try to extend the contract by at least a year and fix at that point a clause around one hundred million, a little more accessible, but which would allow Napoli not to risk getting entangled in a mess, just as is happening to the Qataris in Paris with Kylian Mbappé. Of course, it won’t be easy because after the dizzying valuations of the price tag, the player expects a similar parameter to be used on his salary as well, currently around 4.5 million net plus bonuses, expiring in 2025. But this is the time to understand if the indispensable offer will come from Paris. There’s time for the rest and Victor is certainly doing well in Naples and is enjoying the victory of the Scudetto with great pride, his first great success with a club.

projects and stimuli

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Rather now, without the need for public “shooting” as Mbappé did, creating a tear even in the team, Osimhen wants to understand from the club how the squad that Napoli will set up to defend the Scudetto and aim for the Champions League will be strengthened. And in this it can be a healthy stimulus to the whole environment. Certainly the centre-forward won’t be one to worry him for having already had his fill with the championship victory.

strategies

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Meanwhile, yesterday evening De Laurentiis brought together all the top management to modulate market strategies. In addition to the managing director Andrea Chiavelli, there were the scouting chief Maurizio Micheli and the coach Rudi Garcia. There was also talk of the options in the event of the departure of the centre-forward, top scorer in the Italian championship. The Canadian of Lille Jonathan David, born in 2000, who for three years has brilliantly replaced the Nigerian center forward of the French club. The reports on this powerful center forward are all positive, but the profiles followed by Napoli are different. De Laurentiis won’t want to get caught by the throat – if he has to buy a center forward, it means that he will have sold his own for at least 150 million euros – and therefore if that moment arrives, he will have to have more options in order not to spend too much money. In this sense, the interests in the Premier of the Danish Rasmus Hojlund, born in 2003, from Atalanta, with very high ratings, distance him from Napoli’s projects.