Allegri weighs options behind Hojlund as Euro 2032 and Anguissa loom

Italian papers on Thursday 1 October split between forward-line solutions for the head coach and two issues with longer horizons: Napoli's Euro 2032 bid and a transfer story that already points to January.

by Gennaro SanninoThursday 1 October, 08:39 CET· 1 hour ago

Stadio Diego Armando Maradona — Foto: metroitalia.info

Corriere dello Sport flips the script on Napoli's recent problems, with a headline pointing to an embarrassment of attacking riches rather than a shortage of them. Once players return from the international break, head coach Allegri will reportedly have more players than places behind Hojlund — now the only recognised striker left in the squad.

Tuttosport turns to the stadium question, with a headline that needs careful reading. The paper places Napoli in contention alongside Florence and Palermo to host Euro 2032, but stresses that the scheme on the table is a redevelopment of the Maradona, not the separate 70,000-seat stadium in Napoli Est that the president has announced on his own account. Two different projects that risk being conflated, and Tuttosport is keen to keep them apart.

Il Mattino leads with a blunt transfer line: sporting director Manna's mission is to sell Anguissa in January. The paper names the sporting director as the architect of a planned departure, at a time when the midfielder's contract renewal talks have stalled and interest from a club eyeing a free transfer at the end of his deal had already emerged in recent weeks.

Three storylines that show a Napoli being pulled in several directions at once: Allegri's attacking reshuffle, a political battle over the stadium, and a midfield that could lose an important piece before the season has properly got going.

Our view

What stands out on the day after the international break — with the team ninth in the table and still shaking off its worst start in ten years — is how much space the papers give to January scenarios and a 2032 tournament that is a long way off. Those are legitimate stories, but running them today, without a line on why Allegri will actually end up with so many players behind Hojlund — an attack that has produced little so far — risks describing the team we would like to see in a few months rather than the one that exists now. If the Anguissa sale in January is confirmed, it would not be an isolated surprise but the result of a renewal that was never resolved: a problem the club has known about for some time, and one somebody will eventually have to answer for.