An analytical view at Europe’s hottest team to start the 22/23 season

By: Pablo Ocariz, originally written November 2022

When you talk about the best teams in Europe,  –  teams with a real chance at the Champions League –  the list is one of economic juggernauts.  Real Madrid, Paris Saint-Germain, Liverpool and Manchester City. The European elite teams can spend hundreds of millions of dollars every transfer window and not worry about turning a profit. No one in the world has better facilities, more expensive players, more reputable coaches or more global fanbases than these teams have. 

There is a team in European soccer this season, however, that is breaking through all of these inherent advantages that the superteams have. Despite losing its two all-time top goalscorers and greatest ever defender, They are doing all of this while turning a profit in last summer’s transfer window and still remain outside the the top 20 clubs with the most revenue. They managed to improve into the best team in the continent. They are the only team in the Champions League with at least 20 goals. They have the biggest gap to second place in their domestic league of anyone in Europe’s top five leagues. 

All of this begs the question; are SSC Napoli the best team in European soccer this season?

Playing a different game

Napoli do not have the financial prowess of Europe’s elite clubs. They don’t even have the financial prowess of the clubs in their own nation. Consider this list: 

Juventus have been the dominant force in Italian soccer over the past 12 years, winning nine straight league titles between 2011 and 2020. Their yearly revenue is $515 million and they are valued at $2.45 billion. Paris Saint-Germain have been similarly dominant in France, winning eight titles in 10 years between 2012 and 2022. Their yearly revenue is $661 million, and they are valued at $3.2 billion. 

Napoli have a yearly revenue of $219 million. They are valued at just $471 million.

Napoli are not playing the same game as these superclubs. So they have to play it smarter, scout better, and that’s exactly what they have done.

“It’s all about finding cheaper talent from different places,” said Kirsten Schlewitz, a reporter and author of More than Maradonna: The Birth, Death and Rebirth of SSC Napoli. “You find scrappy players that no one thinks are going to be a big deal, and you make the best of what you have.”

Making the best of what they have is what Napoli have done best in the recent past. Napoli has to build their teams in a smart way, and they cannot afford the huge wages that other teams pay. So they don’t pay those wages.

(Data courtesy of fbref)

Despite being eight points clear at the top of Serie A, Napoli only have a weekly wage budget of $1.25 million. They are sixth in Serie A, spending less than half what Juventus are spending. They are 10 points clear of them.

This low-budget approach has resulted in a clear outlook for who the team wants to sign. Director of Football Cristiano Guintoli has made it a point to sign young players, and the stats back up his words.

“During the market we pretend to chat with everyone, and sometimes we really do. But we wanted to invest in a young team,” said Guintoli.

Signing young players

This departure from the old guard is not an accident. The average age of the players Napoli brought in this summer is just 23.5, and the average age of the squad has gone down from 27 in 2020 to 25.9 this season.

Napoli’s new signings have reflected this attitude, and their change in market value have proved the team’s prowess in the market.

The best example of this came this summer. 21-year-old Khvicha Kvaratskhelia came in from Georgian side Dinamo Batumi for just $10 million this summer. After just three months at the club, his value is now $60 million according to transfermarkt.

This is what Napoli do. They are playing a different financial game to other clubs competing for titles, and they are finding better talents for cheaper. They are playing a different game, and they are winning.

The New Signings

Having a new mentality helps, but if the players aren’t good enough then it is irrelevant. After a summer of losing key players in every facet of play, Napoli would need the new signings to hit the ground running. 

The two additions to the starting lineup this summer were 21-year-old forward Khvicha Kvaratskhelia from the Georgian league and 25-year-old center-back Min-Jae Kim from the Turkish league. 

They came in for a combined $28 million. This might sound like a lot of money, but they sold Koulibaly alone for $38 million. Their transfers are the height of Napoli’s smart business.

Kim has been an incredibly solid center back, even winning Serie A Player of the Month in September. But he is not the star, he is not the story. The story is that of the young man from Georgia who has come in and rocked Serie A.

Kvaradona

“I love Kvara. It’s so basic and so easy to say,” said Schlewitz. “He’s young, he’s fun, he’s scoring goals, he’s setting records.”

Kvaratskhelia, or as he’s become colloquially known ‘Kvara,’ has had one of the best debut campaigns in the history of Serie A. After being brought in from Georgian side Dinamo Batumi for just $10 million over the summer, he has been, simply put, the best player in Italy this season.

Kvara has 11 goal contributions in 12 games, the most in Italy. He went from the 46th ranked league in Europe to the 4th, and instantly began to beat out the league’s former top scorers and MVPs.

(Data courtesy of fbref)

This is an incredibly hard jump for a rookie in the league who jumped from the 46th best league in the continent to the third, Supporting Schlewitz’s explanation of finding scrappy young players and making them the best they can be.

Kvara was brought in to replace Neopolitan icon and club captain Lorenzo Insigne, and the club hierarchy was scared that there might be too much weight on his back. 

“One thing was to take Kvaratskhelia, it was another to take him in place of Insigne,” said Guintoli. “The bet could be too much, too demanding. But we wanted to play it and today I can say that we won it.”

To say they won the bet is an understatement. His 1.14 goal contributions per 90 minutes are miles ahead of anything Insigne ever did at Napoli.

(Data courtesy of fbref)

Kvara has blown him out of the water. Insigne is one of Napoli’s best ever players, a club captain and legend who scored 96 goals and assisted another 75 for the team, and his stats are overshadowed by this 21-year-old who came from the 46th best league in Europe.

His outstanding play has earned him the biggest prize Napoli fans can give a player; they have branded him with the nickname ‘Kvaradona’, a tribute to the late, great Diego Armando Maradona. 

If you need to know how high of praise this is, you need not go further than this simple USA Today headline, “For Napoli fans, the team is a religion and Maradona is god.” 

For a player, any player, to be branded by Napoli fans with the suffix ‘dona’ is a higher level of praise than any player, coach, analyst or even stat could ever tell you about the young Georgian.

Domestic Dominance

No one in all of Europe’s top leagues has been as dominant in their domestic competition as the Partenopei. 

Through the World Cup break, they have 41 points in the league, tied with Paris Saint-Germain for the most in all of Europe. They are one of only two unbeaten teams in all of Europe. What is most impressive is the gap they have built from second place AC Milan, a steep eight points.

(Data courtesy of fbref)

This team is running away with the league title. They have a gap to second place that is as close to insurmountable as one can get. Napoli fans are excited, but they are also worried.

“If we were to keep this tightness in the team (…) then we would absolutely win our third Scudetto,” said Schlewitz. “But everything is up in the air.”

Napoli’s domestic display has been nothing short of outstanding. They have one hand firmly grasping the Scudetto after only 14 games. But it would be hard to name a team the best in Europe if they had not performed well in the Champions League. How have Napoli done?

Europe’s Next Top Scorers

Napoli ran rampant in the Champions League group stage this year, seemingly scoring at will. Their 20 goals in the competition not only leads the competition, but is tied for the 4th most EVER in the first stage of the competition.

In the six Champions League games they have played, they won five. They scored three or more goals in all five wins. They won by three or more goals in four out of five wins. 

The only game they lost was the last game of the group stage. They had already wrapped up first place in the group, they had nothing to play for. This wasn’t an easy group either. 

Two of the groups teams, Liverpool and Ajax, are ranked inside the top 10 in UEFA’s club coefficients, while Rangers was the highest ranked team in pot four of the competition. Napoli dominated, scoring in a historic fashion.

The way they have been able to score so much is not through the talismanic efforts of one player, but through getting goals from all over the pitch.. 

They have 11 different goalscorers in the competition. That is three more than second place Bayern Munich. The team’s two top scorers are Giacomo Raspadori and Giovanni Simeone with four goals each. One would expect them to be the star strikers, the attackers that Kvara has been assisting all season long. Neither of them are even starters.

That is why the team has been able to run amuck against Europe’s elite. They get goals from all over the field, they play as a team, they score as a team and they win as a team. They have the best attack in European competition this season. 

Napoli have a budget the fraction of all of the European elite. They have still managed to bring in the best players under a great system with intelligent management. Their superstars have performed to the highest level of any players in the league, and they have dominated said league. SSC Napoli have managed to become the best team in Europe this year.