Napoli, Raspadori still a man of providence. With a view to the scudetto
Just like two years ago, the former Sassuolo player scores important goals that could potentially decide the entire championship. From Venezia to Lecce: his 5 seasonal gems with maximum weight

Giacomo Raspadori (Ansa)
Naples, 4 May 2025 - From a possible departure, and even a pawn in the exchange, to a man for the Scudetto, practically for a revival of what happened two years ago: when it comes to getting serious, James Raspadori never backs down, becoming the emblem of the Napoli right at the key moments of the season. It was the 2022-2023 season, but the current one also runs, on which the trademark of the 2000 class is once again imprinted.
Raspadori's numbers at Napoli
Goals, in fact, never banal in any possible sense. We start from the ratio between minutes on the pitch, many of which as a substitute, and goals scored: in order, 863 ' smeared in 23 tokens in the championship in which Breakers has found 5 goal e 1 assists, to which we can add another in the short and disappointing journey of the Azzurri in Coppa Italia (in this competition the minutes spent on the green rectangle are 228). If you broaden your view to the entire adventure, Napoli of the ex Sassuolo, turnover rises to 17 goals e 10 assists in 106 attendance: numbers, in theory, not particularly brilliant for a player who cost in total, in terms of price tag, the beauty of 35 million and that since its landing in the shadow of Vesuvius, dated August 2022, has always struggled to find a so-called permanent position on the field despite the changes on the bench and the team's ups and downs. Yet, there is a very different specific weight to all that Breakers does when he has a chance to play. Just think that of his 17 networks total in blue, well 12 have been decisive in unlocking matches which, from the perspective of the Napoli, were languishing in a draw or even at a disadvantage. And in the meantime, superstition and arithmetic aside, the Neapolitan club has won practically one and a half championships and on both of them there is the signature of the former child prodigy of Italian football. From the paw to the last breath of theAllianz Stadium, good at beating the Juventus in a never trivial challenge for an entire city and to put a mortgage on the third tricolour, awaiting the official confirmation that would arrive shortly thereafter, to the mocking punishment good for conquering the Street of the Sea: the protagonist is always him, the eternal precarious, as well as perhaps the best twelfth player of the entire championship. However, woe betide anyone who reduces the contribution of the native of to all this (and it would not be little anyway) Bentivoglio, someone who has pulled the so-called chestnuts out of the fire even in less delicate moments of the season and in perhaps less dramatic matches. Well before the goal that knocked down a Lecce stubborn but blunt, Breakers had given to the Napoli networks that were nothing short of crucial. The first of the season came right at the end of 2024, a negative calendar year for the class of 2000 and for the entire Neapolitan team: a flash of genius good for stretching the Venice, thus taking away from Romelu Lukaku regrets for the missed penalty in the first half. Then Jacks it repeats itself with the best possible profit for its cons Lazio e Fiorentina, signing instead at As an the illusion in a horror afternoon that to many seemed like the surrender on the championship front of the Napoli prerogative of theInter. Never was an assessment more mistaken.
The risk of leaving in January and Conte's role
And to think that in January, if not even in many of the previous market sessions, Breakers, could have started with the risk of being reduced to a mere bargaining chip or, even worse, of strengthening some direct rival. Perhaps the most critical point of the adventure in blue of the former Sassuolo It was precisely in the recent transfer market, the one that, to be clear, saw the sensational farewell of Khvisha Kvaratskhelia, the star of the other championship: another event that, always wrongly, had been interpreted as a sign of surrender and weakness on the part of the Napoli. The flow of luxury sales was uncorked, sending the Georgian to the Paris Saint-Germain, in theory every other departure seemed almost legitimate: including that of Breakers, which a few weeks earlier, from the withdrawal of the National, had clearly claimed more space, aware that in the meantime the years pass, taking away the best part of his career. It is difficult to say how much things have really changed today, despite that two-pronged module often used by Antonio Conte (also) to give more minutes to the tournament's luxury reserve par excellence. The Salento coach himself, in one of his many vitriolic press conferences, had publicly blocked the sale of Breakers, which was especially popular with Juventus e Roma. Tale, with his perhaps too emphatic but often terribly effective methods, had feared the risk of a Napoli who by mid-season was selling all the prized pieces, adding to the ranks kvaratskhelia is exactly Breakers. One would have really gone away from Fuorigrotta, another one is still an idol and protagonist and, unless he collapses in the last three games, he will be the man for the championship again. Then of course, when the game is over, this role will most likely still have to be discussed Breakers never at the centre of the project, although relieved by two consolations: the permanent position, there yes, in National, and the continued presence in the list of young Italian players at a time when the foreign press has not spared hilarity for the inclusion in the same list of Alessio zerbin, 26 years old among other things with the parent company right in Napoli. In short, perhaps in the shadow of Vesuvius, in a city where time is notoriously marked by a very particular rhythm, one ages more slowly. The fact is that Breakers continues to be decisive well beyond what the identity card, the minutes spent on the pitch and the effectiveness in the same say. Napoli at the foot of Jacks, act two, and woe betide anyone who talks about a surprise: after all, if to the player par excellence of providence when the air of the championship is in the air you add the coach who is a specialist in the hunt for the title, the result is quickly achieved and leads to the tricolour finish line.
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