Scout rates Napoli loanee Rao among Serie B's best

Lucky Scout's Matteo Fittavolini believes Emanuele Rao, on loan at Pisa, would be even sharper played a touch further inside. His read on Allegri's Napoli, ninth after five games, is considerably harsher.

by Gennaro SanninoSaturday 3 October, 19:19 CET· 1 hour ago

Rao, il prestito al Pisa e il giudizio di Fittavolini: «Tra i migliori della Serie B» — Grafica Arena Napoli

Emanuele Rao, the Napoli-owned midfielder on loan at Pisa in Serie B (Italy's second tier), has been talked up by a professional scout as one of the best players in the division last season. Matteo Fittavolini, head of scouting at the Lucky Scout agency, rates him highly: "He's an extremely strong player. I think he was one of the best players in Serie B last season. He definitely started out on the wing last season."

Not quite a winger

Pure wide man is not how Fittavolini sees him long-term. He thinks Rao's best position is a touch further infield: "I see him slightly more inside — not that he doesn't play as a winger, but if I had to name his perfect role in a 3-4-2-1, I'd put him on the left of centre, able to drift wide and come inside, not a pure winger. He's undoubtedly a good player, though."

That profile does not exist in Napoli's current squad. Head coach Allegri has stuck with a 4-3-3, confirmed again in the friendly against Avellino at Castel Volturno (the club's training ground), and the closest thing to Rao's hybrid role has been David Neres tucked inside in testing, not a conventional winger.

A harsher verdict on Napoli

Asked about Allegri's team, Fittavolini's tone hardened: "This is a team for the top positions, but maybe it's at a particular point in its cycle, because De Laurentiis has historically caused a bit of organisational confusion — there are years when he pushes harder to win, transition years, and rebuilding years. This is a strange one, still hard to read, because a cycle is ending and he'll probably soon have to cut the wage bill and get the squad younger."

I think he was one of the best players in Serie B last season.

That is where Rao's case stops being just a scouting note and becomes a question about the real Napoli — ninth in Serie A with 7 points from 5 games. If the cycle really is ending and the squad needs rejuvenating, as an outside observer suggests, the open question is how willing the club actually is to do that with its own academy products, rather than just talking about it. Over the past ten years, the Scugnizzeria (Napoli's youth academy) has brought in just €34.8m from academy sales and capital gains — a figure that points to a youth system kept at arm's length rather than a genuine plan for generational turnover. Rao, owned by the club but still far from Allegri's first-team group, is exactly the kind of name that question should be about: whether he comes back to play for Napoli, or stays a name other people rate.

For now, his season is being played in Serie B in Pisa's shirt, far from the Maradona and from Allegri's plans. Napoli, meanwhile, are trying to work their way out of the "hard to read" moment Fittavolini described — on the pitch. Frosinone visit on Saturday 10 October, and it will be that match, not interviews about promising youngsters, that shows whether the cycle really does need rewriting.