Vergara earns Kvaratskhelia comparison on senior debut

The 20-year-old's half-hour against France dominates Sunday's papers, while TuttoMercatoWeb and Sky Sport flag trouble and a possible fix in Napoli's midfield.

by Gennaro SanninoSunday 4 October, 08:39 CET· 1 hour ago

I NUMERI

Arena Napoli International graphic

Antonio Vergara made his senior Italy debut on Sunday 4 October, playing half an hour in a 1-1 draw with France in Saint-Denis.

La Gazzetta dello Sport marked the moment with a bold comparison: "Come il primo Kvaratskhelia" (like the young Kvaratskhelia). Corriere dello Sport grouped him with Kayode and Seba Esposito among Roberto Mancini's new faces, under the heading "bella gioventù" (a fine crop of youth). Both papers have so far offered only those headlines and that judgement, not a full account of his performance.

While the papers celebrate that future, TuttoMercatoWeb reports a thornier story: André-Frank Anguissa's contract renewal is reportedly increasingly in doubt. The midfielder is said to have asked for €6m a season, a request the club have already turned down.

Sky Sport's Massimo Ugolini has floated another midfield idea: a possible return for Eljif Elmas, now at Atalanta, as a way to "change the face" of Massimiliano Allegri's side. It remains only a suggestion, with no detail on timing or structure of a deal.

The contrast between the two storylines is stark: excitement over a 20-year-old's Italy debut on one side, a first-choice midfielder at odds with the club over his contract and a market idea aimed at patching holes in January on the other. Two parallel stories, in the same pages, that today do not speak to each other.

Our take

The danger of this Sunday's papers is getting distracted by the generational feel-good story and losing sight of the real issue: a Napoli side ninth in the table who host Frosinone in six days with a midfield still to be sorted out, caught between a starter asking for €6m he is not getting and a name from the past recalled more out of necessity than enthusiasm. Vergara's debut is good news for him and for the national team, but it is not news about the team that takes the field on Saturday. What is missing from these pages is exactly that: who plays against Frosinone, with what balance, and whether the team have actually fixed what went wrong in Florence.