“Spalletti is staying in Naples, we could have won the Scudetto earlier”

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Naples – “Luciano Spalletti will stay next year as well”. This was announced by the president of Napoli, Aurelio De Laurentiis, on the occasion of the ceremony for the delivery of the Bearzot Award, at the Maschio Angioino, to the Tuscan coach. These are his statements: “Luciano Spalletti will stay in Naples. The starting players? There is always the indecent proposal. How much? The numbers are made by others, but we wait. We’re in good company, the guys are extraordinary, my contracts are unique, they come from the cinema, and nobody moves if we don’t want to alienate him. Now we look forward to organizing this big party that involves millions of fans around the world. We will have to put about fifteen cities connected with various corners of Naples “.

De Laurentiis praises Spalletti: “Congratulations to Spalletti who was a happy intuition that I had to sidetrack. Journalists don’t mind their own business, they do the transfer market as they please and it becomes a mess. At that moment Gattuso wasn’t feeling well and I went to see Spalletti in the vertical forest and for the second time I wanted him to come to us, after I had already asked him when he was at Roma. So he told me he couldn’t come, but years later I went to see him in Milan. Of course, over the years there have been lucky choices and if the rules of football were different we would have brought the Scudetto even earlier.” Returning to Spalletti: “He took me up and I said that if Gattuso didn’t feel well, he would have to take over. He said no, only in June and I wrested a yes from him. He doesn’t remember it but a little frowning he said okay. We went on with Gattuso until June, I didn’t want to saw him off, maybe if I had, I would have entered the Champions League earlier but I’m a respectful person

. In the meantime, to throw the journalists off the track, I called Conceiçao, Allegri and then the good Luciano came to bring us back to the top three and also in that year, last year, something different could have happened if football was more legal”.

Aurelio De Laurentiis recalls when he bought Napoli: “In ’96 I had imagined combining cinema with football and in ’99 I presented myself with a check for 125 billion and Ferlaino sued me. While I was finishing a film with Angelina Jolie and Gwyneth Paltrow, I came to Capri for my holidays and I didn’t know that Napoli had gone bankrupt. I saw Gaucci with this belly full of gold, I didn’t know he had gone bankrupt. Everyone asked me, what are you doing buying Napoli? Against the advice of my wife and my son Luigi, who wanted to take over Hollywood, I bought Napoli. I told my son that cinema is the most complete and complex job he hesitates, but let me try football and let’s see how it goes. And so this beautiful adventure that has lasted for 18 years started. The best thing is that I remember that from Los Angeles I used to go to these southern soccer fields to get spit on my head and I told myself that I had made a big step in my career (ed). I must say that I have a beautiful family behind me, with my wife who follows me everywhere. She has become more of a fan than me. She tears her hair out, runs, runs away, asks me if I’m a fan because she sees me calmer than her.”