Napoli manager Maurizio Sarri meant it lightly. When he sees Gonzalo Higuain face to face for the first time since they were colleagues, he will greet him, he said, “like father to a son who made him angry.”
Dries Mertens, Higuain’s former partner in a thrilling Napoli forward line, threatened something stronger. “I won’t have a laugh with him, but I might give him a slap,” the Belgian said as he smiled, clearly intending the remark in jest.
Saturday night’s Juventus versus Napoli clash in Italy’s Serie A will be decided by more than one individual, but there is no escaping the spotlight on the Juventus centre-forward, up against his previous employers for the first time. Higuain scored a record 36 goals in the last league campaign, looked so decisive and so devastating in penalty areas across the peninsula for much of the season that he built a dream-factory for Neapolitans.
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At the outset of 2016, Napoli looked poised to win a first league title for 25 years, propelled towards it by a centre-forward whose journey to his peak has had some dispiriting times but who appeared to have found his ideal working environment.
It was not lost on Napoli’s vocal, loyal, combustible fans that their figurehead was an Argentine. Many lovingly recall the era when Diego Maradona, the maverick from Buenos Aires, made them the best team in Italy, and bought into their defiant posture towards the northern establishment, the clubs of Turn and Milan.
Higuain is no Maradona. He is not outspoken. Indeed he can appear almost shy.
When he came to Naples in 2013, sold by Real Madrid, he was 25 years old and the suspicion lingered that for all his goals with Madrid — over 100 in fewer than 200 matches — he was just short of world-class. Madrid had recruited him as a teenager. He struggled initially in Spain, improved, then finally lost out in his long-running duel with Karim Benzema for the Real centre-forward slot.
He joined a Napoli on the rise, and Higuain rose with them. He might have retired with them, too, feted forever. But Juventus, alarmed by how hard Napoli pushed them last season before they pulled away and won their fifth successive scudetto, then broke the bank and broke tens of thousands of Neapolitan hearts.
From a distorted summer transfer market, there are a few standout sums.
Paul Pogba cost Manchester United €105 million (Dh420.7m), the sellers a Juventus delighted to be the recipients of a world-record fee. If eyebrows were raised by United’s extravagance — Pogba plays each game under price-tag pressure — so was the direction Juve channelled their booty. Higuain will be 29 in December. Juve put 90 per cent of their Pogba income into signing him from Napoli, with, it seemed, twin aims: to weaken their rivals, and to strengthen their attack.
The backlash down south was ferocious, with photos and posters of Higuain burned in the streets of Naples, and talk of betrayal from Napoli executives, who heard from the player that he wanted the move to go through. Many there still seethe.
Alas for Napoli, four points behind leaders Juve in the table as they take on Goal-Machine Gonzalo, they are not in the best shape to look as if they have weathered his departure. The striker they bought to replace him, Arkadiusz Milik, is injured, and Manolo Gabbiadini, another senior centre-forward, suspended.
As for Higuain, he is in something of a drought, by his recent standards. He has not added to his seven league and European goals so far for Juve in any of his past four appearances.
It not quite the sort of barren run that he suffered in his early days at Real Madrid, where the stadium announcer was once driven to exclaim via loudspeaker “At last, Higuain scores!”, but it is longer than he ever went without a goal in a Napoli jersey last season.
Neapolitans will hope his current frustrations continue, and that they begin to breed deeper doubts.
PLAYER TO WATCH — NABIL BENTALEB
'Bang, Boom, Bentaleb', one headline read in Bild, Germany's top-selling newspaper after last weekend's emphatic Schalke victory over Mainz. The subject? Bentaleb, the Algeria international midfielder, whose form has helped boost the visitors' hopes ahead of Saturday's Ruhr derby at Borussia Dortmund.
Goal glut
Bentaleb has three goals in Schalke’s last two matches, including a sumptuous left-foot volley that began the 3-0 dismantling of Mainz, and he looks like the catalyst to turning around Schalke’s season. Bentaleb joined in the summer, one of number of talented newcomers, and promptly saw Schalke lose their opening five games. Since then, three league outings have yielded seven points, eight goals and just one conceded.
Lucky loanee
Such is the positive impact Bentaleb has made that Schalke seemed inclined to make him a long-term member of their squad. He is currently on loan from Tottenham Hotspur, where he came up through the teenaged ranks as part of celebrated generation of footballers but began to find first-team starts hard to come by, amid tough competition for places in the Spurs midfield. Schalke could make his deal permanent for around €20 million (Dh80.12m).
Scoring touch
The Bundesliga seems to suit him. In 66 games for the English club, where he tended to play in a deep role, Bentaleb scored just once. He has three goals in eight matches for Schalke. “I’m very happy to have scored the first double of my career,” he beamed after his Mainz masterclass.
Derby knack
Saturday’s so-called Revierderby is German football’s fiercest local rivalry: Schalke will be greeted with shrill contempt at the country’s biggest stadium, Dortmund’s Westfalen arena. Bentaleb should not be fazed. Derbies suit him. He made his first senior start as a professional in a North London derby, a Tottenham versus Arsenal in the FA Cup in early 2014. The season before he scored the winner against Arsenal in an Under 21 club match for Tottenham.
Much-travelled
Bentaleb only turns 22 next month, but he has accumulated a good deal of experience. He was born in France, where he enrolled as his local club, Lille. He also had a junior stint in Belgium, at Mouscron. Having represented France U19s, he then chose to play for Algeria, where his parents come from. He was still a teenager when he played at the 2014 World Cup and will take part in his second Africa Cup of Nations finals in January. Schalke will doubtless feel his absence.
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