It didn’t take lengthy for SSC Napoli to crash from the dizzying heights of their third-ever Scudetto final spring. First, supervisor Luciano Spalletti left the membership and finally took the Italian nationwide workforce supervisor’s job. After which the workforce obtained off to a really wonky begin this season in Serie A, gathering solely eight factors of their first 5 video games beneath new supervisor Rudi Garcia, trailing Inter by seven factors already. The water is fairly uneven as effectively inside the dressing room.

In all probability, then, it wasn’t the most effective thought to choose a struggle with their greatest participant by way of social media, huh? Nicely, they did it anyway.

On Saturday, Napoli had a irritating 0-0 draw away to Bologna. That they had a primary likelihood to take the lead when Victor Osimhen earned a penalty. Sadly, he hit it whereas seemingly beneath seasickness, and despatched it huge. This was the now-deleted TikTok that the official Napoli feed determined to launch after the sport:

You’ll by no means guess that this didn’t go down so effectively with Osimhen, and his agent was making the rounds yesterday saying that they could take authorized motion in opposition to the membership. It’s arduous to know what precisely was the aim right here, apart from a social media worker pulling a Costanza with out having to resort to bringing again Bodysuit Man. It’s not notably humorous until there’s a nuance to Neopaliton humor that escapes me. Is there any workforce on the planet that makes use of their social channels to mock their very own gamers? And in what world was this going to go unnoticed by the participant himself?

To make issues worse, one way or the other, this all comes at a fairly fragile level within the relationship between Napoli, and Osimhen. They had been very fortunate to maintain him on the membership in the summertime, due to Chelsea’s….whathaveya, and Manchester United choosing a youthful, cheaper choice in Rasmus Højlund, whereas Bayern Munich had been fixated on Harry Kane. There isn’t a big pool of groups that would afford the nine-digit payment Osimhen would value, and so they all selected different paths. PSG didn’t know they had been going to be shedding Neymar in time, and Actual Madrid are ready on Kylian Mbappe. However that doesn’t imply Osimhen is Napoli for all times, and the membership had needed to tie him to a brand new contract — in all probability with a bonkers launch clause — fairly quickly. His present deal runs out in 2025, and in the event that they needed to promote him subsequent summer time with just one yr remaining on his deal, that might deliver the worth down. He’s in all probability not sprinting to re-up with the workforce in the meanwhile now, is he?

He apparently isn’t too enamored with something at Napoli, if you wish to learn means an excessive amount of into the video at this time that’s making the rounds on Twitter:

Don’t you find it irresistible when everybody turns into physique language specialists?

Napoli had been such a feel-good story final yr, a sometimes-ignored, and often-derided membership within the retro south of Italy (soccer-wise, not fashion-clever, I assume) coming from the clouds to play a few of the most fun and beautiful soccer wherever in Europe and working away with Serie A in entrance of totally delirious followers. Maybe it was all simply too high-octane to be held collectively for greater than a season. Although that doesn’t imply that the membership itself must hold urgent the detonator.

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