Kevin De Bruyne’s move to Napolithis past week felt understated: one of the finest players of a generation switching clubs for the first time in a decade, to little fanfare. The arranging of his medical in Rome, not Naples, played a part, avoiding the crowds that would have turned out to greet him. A handful of fans still found a way to be there when he arrived at the Villa Stuart clinic, 140 miles from their team’s home ground.
Confirmation of his move came first from the Italian team’s owner, Aurelio De Laurentiis, who posted a picture to social media of them sat side-by-side in director’s chairs. “Welcome Kevin!” were the accompanying words.
The tonal shift from De Laurentiis’s earlier work was marked. This is a man who once unveiled Gökhan Inler – a Swiss international, but certainly a less noteworthy talent than De Bruyne – by having himshow up in a lion maskto a soiree on a cruise ship.
Times change and so haveNapoli. A club who used to sell themselves as scene-stealing underdogs have begun to project a different image: of a team that know they can win trophies and intend to keep doing so. One whose international brand has strengthened to the point where they can land a player like De Bruyne.
He is hardly the first big signing of De Laurentiis’s tenure. Gonzalo Higuaín had scored 121 goals for Real Madrid and won La Liga three times before he joined Napoli. Victor Osimhen cost more than €70m (£60m) to acquire from Lille.
Still, De Bruyne belongs to a different category: one of the best performers in Premier League history, with six winners’ medals and two Premier League player-of-the-year awards – the latter achievement placing him in exalted company alongside Thierry Henry, Cristiano Ronaldo, Nemanja Vidic and Mohamed Salah. De Bruyne is also a Champions League winner, who pushed his body to breaking point to help Manchester City get across the line in 2023.
Since buying the rights to a bankrupt club in 2004, De Laurentiis has rebuilt Napoli’s image in part through a strategy of progressively more high-profile transfers and managerial appointments. Having made his fortune in the movie industry, he understands better than most the difference that a sprinkling of stardust can make.
De Bruyne will be 34 by the time he plays his first game for Napoli and the last two years at City suggest his body is no longer capable of performing at the levels it once did. Even so, a player who chipped in eight goals and 17 assists over the last two Premier League seasons, while starting only 34 games, plainly still has things left to contribute. And his power as a leading man may yet be undimmed.
According to the newspaper Il Corriere dello Sport, Napoli’s Instagram added in excess of 500,000 followers – more than 10% of their total – within hours of De Bruyne being announced. These are details that will make some football fans roll their eyes, but in the business of the modern game they matter.
Social media following is one metric companies assess when negotiating commercial deals with clubs. But there are more subtle impacts, too. It would be naïve to imagine that footballers, each a brand in their own right, do not sometimes think about their teams’ online presence and how it ties up with their own.
It is not so much that De Bruyne’s signing transforms the landscape for Napoli, but it might consolidate a trend. They have won two Serie A titles in three years, yet those successes have felt oddly unconnected – achieved under different managers with different tactics using different players in key roles.
The 2022-23scudettowas a bolt from the blue, Luciano Spalletti harnessing the talent of a newly discovered Khvicha Kvaratskhelia as well as a break-out year for Osimhen. Last season was something different, a fresh project under Antonio Conte that came together quicker than anyone expected.
“We had set ourselves the target of getting back into Europe, not even the Champions League,” Conte told Italy’s Sky Sport last week. “We wanted to have one more year of growth, then try to compete to win things in the third year.”
The tension between the manager’s slow-and-steady vision and the escalating pressure to keep winning as his team emerged as a frontrunner almost brought his tenure to a premature end. Even as Napoli celebrated their title, his gestures toward De Laurentiis appeared frosty. Was it the promise of signing players such as De Bruyne that ultimately persuaded Conte to stay around?
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To reverse the question, how important was the manager’s presence in convincing De Bruyne to make this move? There were offers on the table from teams in the United States and Saudi Arabia, but De Bruyne still has the itch to compete at Europe’s highest levels. Last season only confirmed Conte’s astonishing ability to deliver silverware almost everywhere he goes.
Then again, perhaps there were other factors. De Bruyne may have spoken to his Belgium teammate Romelu Lukaku, who racked up 14 goals and 10 assists after joining Napoli from Chelsea last summer. Or their compatriot Dries Mertens, who played nine seasons for thePartenopeiand fell so head-over-heels in love with the city that when he speaks of “home” this is still the place which he thinks of, despite leaving to join Galatasaray in 2022. Mertens was awarded honorary citizenship of Naples this month.
Or maybe it was even just witnessing another player move here from Manchester and reimagine their career. Scott McTominay went from United cast-offto Serie A most valuable playerin nine months. It will be fascinating to see how Conte uses them together. He showed his flexibility this season, tearing up his original tactical plans to exploit the Scotland international’s strengths to the fullest.
There is every reason to believe De Bruyne can be a hit, too. A cliche it may be, but it remains true that the football played in Serie A is slower and more tactical than that in the Premier League. With more time on the ball, he will have an opportunity to reinvent himself all over again – as he did repeatedly throughout the different chapters of his time under Pep Guardiola at City.
As long ago as 2016, De Bruyne told Britain’s Sky Sports: “I am used to playing in six different positions.” By now we might be into double figures. He was at different times for City a box-to-box midfielder, a deep-lying playmaker, a winger, a No 10 and a false 9.
“I still have a lot to give,” De Bruyne said this April, as he contemplated a life after City. “Obviously I know I’m not 25 any more, but I still feel like I can do my job.”
He will do it now in Naples, under a manager who always wins and for an owner whose ambitions continue to grow. One of Conte’s oft-repeated frustrations last season was that his club had done its business late in the transfer window, leaving him little time to prepare. Landing De Bruyne this early may well be signal a more aggressive summer ahead.