Marino’s Transfer Policy Under Fire

By: Neil | April 16th, 2009

It’s well known that a lot teams in Europe would like either Lavezzi or Hamsik in their team. Santacroce has also caught the attention of many clubs, so I’ll include him in the group of elite players that Marino discovered before anyone else. Based on those three alone, many people would argue that Pier Paolo Marino has done a great job bringing in young talent to Napoli. But what about the other signings? In light of Napoli’s struggles this season, Marino’s overall approach to rebuilding Napoli has come under fire, most recently from President Aurelio De Laurentiis.

Players that Napoli payed a sizeable amount of money for haven’t had the impact that has been expected. Denis cost 8m Euros, Datolo 7m Euros, Rinaudo 5.5m Euros, Pazienza 4.5m Euros, Navarro 4m Euros (all these transfer fees are approximates. I wish I had time to do better research.) It’s not that these players don’t have talent, or that they haven’t contributed. The problem is that you expect a good return for the money invested, and for certain players the results so far don’t really show great business. For example, the signing of Aronica was much better than the signing of Rinaudo. It’s not because Aroinca’s a better player, but because he represents better value for the money spent. For Aronica we spent 2m Euros and we got a veteran player who is mostly playing to his ability. For Rinaudo we spent 5.5m Euros for a younger player with more potential than Aronica, but for whatever reason Rinaudo has struggled. If you were a director of football and you could take one transfer back, it would likely be the Rinaudo one.

To put it another way, last summer Napoli spent more than 23m on Russotto, Maggio, Rinaudo, and Denis, and the team could very well finish lower in the standings than last season. Add on the Datolo transfer in January and that’s a lot of money spent – even for rich teams like Juve or Milan – and the on field product is arguably not much better than last June. From DeLa’s point of view he was likely better off not spending anything. Napoli have been very active buyers in the mercato since winning promotion from Serie B, and despite the arrival of young stars and a supporting cast it appears the foundation still isn’t there to break into the top four.

Recent rumours have Napoli bringing in Floccari from Atalanta and Zuniga from Siena in the summer mercato. I think this is much smarter business (assuming the deals actually take place.) In exchange for Floccari we sell the remaining half of Garics, and for Zuniga we sell the remaining half of Calaio. We get two players who will address a couple of weak areas – a target man to play along Lavezzi, and a right sided defender/wingback. Giving up two players off our roster means we won’t pay ridiculous transfer fees, and Floccari already has lots of Serie A experience. If the two players don’t live up to expectations it’s not a big deal since they’re (hopefully) low risk financial investments.

Signing Udinese’s D’Agostino is also a good approach because selling the other half of Domizzi should reduce the transfer fee. But for me he’s a little bit of a higher risk than Floccari or Zuniga because with D’Agostino you’re paying for future results rather than how good he is now. Like Denis and Rinaudo, there’s no doubting D’Agostino’s talent, but if he doesn’t meet expectations it’s a lot of money spent on a young player who isn’t playing up to his potential. Whenever you bring in young players it’s often a guessing game to determine just how good they will be, and if you pay too much it becomes a bad signing.

Marino’s low risk signings have really payed dividends: Gargano, Lavezzi (6m, but he showed uncommon skill from day one at Napoli) Hamsik, Santacroce, Mannini. All these players, except Lavezzi, were picked up for lower transfer fees and all except maybe Mannini have dramatically increased in value. Why not continue with that approach in the mercato, and spend the money saved on a couple of key veterans like Cannavaro and someone else?

I’ve heard it argued many times that fans should not care about how their favourite team spends money. It’s DeLa’s money, so what do we care if he overspends? There is a grain of truth in that argument, but in the big picture fans are stakeholders, and usually a team’s collective fanbase does have a measurable impact on the club’s overall financial picture. So it does frustrate me a bit to see lots of money invested into the team without an improvement in results.

Finally, there will be no preview from me for the Cagliari game this week. I’ve been busy with exams this week – this blog has been written in bits and pieces over the last few days – and I’m leaving tomorrow morning for a weekend in Philadelphia. This will be my third Napoli game I’ve missed in the last five weeks, and the only games I’ve been able to watch have been 0-0 draws with Milan and Atalanta. I can’t remember the last time I watched Napoli score a goal.

I highly recommend Jeremy’s Cagliari blog as he usually has really good blogs, even if there aren’t a lot of Cagliari fans to comment. The Sardinians have overachieved this season and are hoping to sneak into a Europe league spot.

I never make predictions about Napoli games because I’m bound to be wrong. But for this game I’m going to predict that Daniele Conti will score a late late goal to give Cagliari a good result just so it doesn’t happen for the third game in a row between these two teams. And on that note let’s hope Napoli can earn a victory, no matter how ugly or injust.