Image via @sscnapoli on Twitter
Bartosz Beresyński’s move to Napoli was officially announced on Saturday, as an initial loan with the option to make it permanent (likely to be taken up). Despite this move having Bereszyński go from Sampdoria, who sit in the bottom three of Serie A, to a club which is currently seven points clear and in the last 16 of the Champions League, some Polish football fans and pundits (mostly on Twitter) were complaining that he now won’t play regular football, so what was the point of leaving a struggling side where he was guaranteed a game.
It’s almost as if we haven’t learnt our lesson from the six months we’ve just seen of Arek Milik at Juventus. We all wrote him off as someone who was going to be getting 15 minutes off the bench at the end of games for Dusan Vlahovic, and here we are six or so months later watching Milik consistently start games and come up big for Juve (see last Wednesday’s game winning 90th minute free kick). Of course, Vlahovic’s persistent groin injury has enabled Milik to receive more starts than he otherwise would have, but even when they were playing together it was clear to see Milik offers Juventus something different and at times it could be said he was more useful up front than Vlahovic was.
Back to Bereszyński, and we know that he’s not going to start given that the direct rival for his position is club captain Giovanni Di Lorenzo, but he adds depth to an area where Napoli didn’t have all that much. Given Napoli’s less rigid way of playing this season, it could also be argued that Bereszyński could play across the Napoli defence. We know of his left back capabilities thanks to the World Cup, and playing as a centre back wouldn’t be too much of a stretch given his speed and the fact that height has less and less to do with being a top-quality centre back in modern football.
The sad truth of being a back-up at a top club is you are limited to appearances off the bench or waiting for a teammate to pick up an injury, but we should be happy that Bereszyński has seen his steady Serie A form and his excellent World Cup form result in a move higher up the pecking order, both in Italian and European football.
At 30 years of age, this was Bereszyński’s last chance for a move to a top club, and I for one am pleased he has made it. Hopefully the opportunities he has for Napoli will go well and he can set about proving those who were sceptical wrong.
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