Esposito: Napoli should have signed Gatti 'like it or not'

The presenter says he spent the whole summer pushing Aurelio De Laurentiis to close a deal for the Juventus centre-back, who he claims would even have accepted a loan with an obligation to buy. Napoli signed Benoît Badiashile instead, and that choice, he argues, was exposed within minutes at San Siro.

by Rosaria CimminoMonday 7 September, 16:15 CET· 3 hours ago

Lo stadio Diego Armando Maradona di Napoli

Lo stadio Diego Armando Maradona — Foto: Gae C. at Italian Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 3.0

"Federico Gatti should have been signed, like it or not." Presenter Paolo Esposito has revived a story from a transfer window that shut six days ago: he says the Juventus centre-back had agreed to move to Napoli, that Juventus were ready to sell him — even on a loan with an obligation to buy — and that the only "no" came from club president Aurelio De Laurentiis.

Esposito says he made the case himself all summer: "I shouted myself hoarse all summer, both telling Aurelio De Laurentiis, president of SSC Napoli, directly and in the various interviews I gave to Neapolitan sports websites." In his account, Massimiliano Allegri also wanted the 28-year-old defender from Piedmont: "With a player like Federico Gatti we'd be talking about something completely different." As evidence, he points to the headed goal Gatti scored against Milan on Sunday evening in stoppage time — confirmation, he says, of the "cazzimma" (Neapolitan for streetwise grit) that he believes Napoli's centre-backs lack.

His harshest judgement is aimed at the club itself: Esposito writes that De Laurentiis thought, "with a lot of presumption... that Napoli was title-worthy as it was", without needing to loosen the purse strings. It is a direct accusation against the president, over the only incoming deal Napoli actually pursued this window — one that then collapsed when Juventus said no.

The Badiashile issue

From here comes the second part of the attack, aimed at both Giovanni Manna and De Laurentiis: in Gatti's place Napoli signed Benoît Badiashile, "an illustrious unknown" in Esposito's words, a player who had never featured in Serie A and was, he says, "seriously short of physical and athletic condition". The reference is to Saturday's debut at San Siro, when the French defender let Thuram score Inter's equaliser.

"He let Inter's striker jump, take aim and score a comfortable header. If it had been me, I'd at least have tried to unbalance the opponent. Instead Badiashile just stood there like a statue."

The window will not reopen until Saturday 2 January 2027, so any regret over Gatti will remain just that until then: outside the window, Napoli can only register free agents. For now the squad is what it is, and Arsenal visit the Maradona in the Champions League on Wednesday 9 September at 21:00 CET (20:00 UK, 15:00 ET) — Badiashile's first chance to answer the criticism on the pitch.