The axis between Empoli and Naples. A long blue thread. On the field it will be a challenge between exes

The current Empoli captain, Sebastiano Luperto, grew up in the Napoli youth team before making his debut in the first team and Giovanni Di Lorenzo, who now wears the armband in the Campania capital, was at Empoli from 2017 to 2019 and then land in the Neapolitan club. The story of a long bond between the two clubs can begin here, which now has two captains at the center of their respective teams and which, over the years, have often mixed emotions and transfers.

In the current squad of the Tuscans there is also Bartosz Bereszynski who moved from Napoli in 2023, on loan from Sampdoria, Lorenzo Tonelli, who shuttled between the two clubs and Alberto Grassi purchased from De Laurentiis’ club on 27 January 2016. However, the midfielder’s experience was far from positive due to a serious injury which forced him to stop and due to which he was never able to make his debut in that shirt. On the other side now, among the opponents, there are Piotr Zielinski who in 2016 moved to Napoli directly from Empoli and in 2017 also Mario Rui who was however at Roma for a season in between.

The double exes who have now moved to other teams or are no longer active are so many that it becomes difficult even to make a list, but above all Empoli in recent decades has “given” two great coaches to Naples, launched and developed by Fabrizio Corsi’s club and then authors of amazing careers. Maurizio Sarri from Empoli, where he stayed for three years, went to Naples in 2015 and two members of the squad also moved with him: Elseid Hysaj and Mirko Valdifiori. His deputy at the time was Francesco Calzona who is the current coach of the Campania region and who had already been with Sarri in the stages in Verona and Perugia, before arriving in Empoli. And then Luciano Spalletti, the current coach of the Italian national team who is a “son” of Empoli where he was a player, coach of the youth team and subsequently of the first team, until 1998.

In Naples (from 2021 to 2023) he won the scudetto at the end of the great run of last season and for the Neapolitan city he is an absolute idol. He was at the “Castellani Computer Gross Arena” in the last home match against Torino, he was then at the “Diego Armando Maradona” to watch the match against Frosinone and it is not excluded that next Saturday he could be in the stands to see “his” Empoli-Naples.