Jose Mourinho To Napoli Makes Little Sense
Inter, Roma and now The Special One is linked to the Napoli job
Jose Mourinho to Napoli? Surely not?
The rumours coming out of England in the last few days suggests that the Portuguese coach doesn’t want to leave Serie A and is refusing the idea of moving to Saudi Arabia to manage a team in the Saudi Pro League.
According to The Times, Mourinho has instructed his agent Jorge Mendes to broker a meeting with Napoli patron Aurelio De Laurentiis with the idea of Mourinho becoming the new Napoli boss ahead of next season.
The meeting, should it happen, could happen over the course of the next week or two. What is certain at this stage is that interim boss Walter Mazzarri won’t be on the bench for next season, with his return proving as much of a disaster as Rudi Garcia’s appointment last summer.
Does Mourinho to Napoli make sense? There are reasons for and against hiring Mourinho and, as ever with him, it’s a little complex.
Lets start with the pros. Mourinho undoubtedly has the personality needed to handle the pressure of the job. Following the success of Luciano Spalletti leading Napoli to their first league title since the halcyon days of Diego Maradona, Napoli need a coach with leadership and charisma in the pro-Spalletti landscape. In this respect both Garcia and Mazzarri were horrendous choices by De Laurentiis, particularly the former. Mourinho would also find the kind of devotion from the Napoli faithful that he found at Roma, with both clubs arguably possessing the most hardcore fans in the country. He would be loved in Naples just as much as he was in the capital.
For Mourinho in 2024, that’s about the height of the pros when considering taking him on. The once suave and charming figure of the mid-2000s has long since gone; left behind by a game that tends to follow Pep Guardiola and Jurgen Klopp. Nowadays, you hire Mourinho at your own risk, with generally the first season being the best before the sharp decline begins by the start of the second.