Sosa blames Napoli's injuries on 'invisible training'

The former Napoli striker, speaking to Radio Marte from Argentina, links the team's muscle problems to players' recovery habits away from the pitch and to the shift from Antonio Conte's methods to Massimiliano Allegri's lighter regime.

by Gennaro SanninoTuesday 6 October, 16:19 CET· 2 hours ago

Sosa: «Infortuni muscolari del Napoli? Colpa dell'allenamento invisibile» — Grafica Arena Napoli

Roberto Carlos Sosa has a theory on Napoli's run of muscle injuries. Speaking to Radio Marte's "Los Ultimos Diez" from Argentina, the former Napoli striker argued the problems start with what players do when they go home: diet, sleep, and recovery, not just what they put in on the training pitch.

If I didn't go to bed at 22:00 after dinner, I wouldn't perform the next day.

Sosa called this the "invisible training" — the work nobody else sees. He pointed to a second factor too: the switch from Conte's tough methods to Allegri's lighter approach needed the right balance in between, he said, and many Napoli players had also made long trips with their national teams during the break. He added a pointed aside about Castel Volturno (the training ground), once blamed by Conte for the club's injuries: that, he said, would be "one of the chapters in Antonio Conte's book of alibis".

The issue is not theoretical. Four days out from Frosinone, none of Napoli's injured players — Buongiorno, Favasuli, Marianucci, Spinazzola and Alisson Santos — will be available.