EXCLUSIVE 'Juventus and the status quo will try to screw Napoli over'
Eraldo Pecci may not have been the kind of player many wanted on their team, but he was the man everyone wanted as a friend. An eternal enemy of "those people", Juventus, whom he sees (at a club if not a team level) an ideological, even political adversary.
And he thinks that someone will try to derail Napoli, too.
"The only threat comes from outside: it's called vested interest" he exclusively told Calciomercato journalist Marco Bernardini, "That of the powers that be who are tied to the world of finance, to the economy, to politcs, to big trusts. I'm certain that, somewhere on their path, someone will try to destabilise Napoli".
"They've already tried to do it with Bayern Munich, before they face Juventus, but they're a dreadnought with or without Guardiola".
Forty years after he won a title with Torino in 1976, history could well be repeating itself, only with Juventus facing off with a different rival: Maurizio Sarri and Gonzalo Higuain's swashbucklin Napoli side.
Pecci, coincidentally, wore the Azzurri's shirt for a season after he left Fiorentina, and nearly won his second Scudetto with the Partenopei...a team he had to leave all too early.
"Maradona and my team-mates won the Scudetto the year after I left.
"I would never have left, but I did because I was splitting up with my wife, and I didn't want to be an absentee father to my children. It was easier to drive to Riccione from Bologna [where he went] than from Naples. I had no choice.
"Otherwise, I would never have left that team, that city after just one season. If you're lucky enough to end up there when you're 20, you stay there forever. Besides, the people of Naples are the strength, soul, courage a player needs".
"I believe Sarri's boys can do it this year. They're not a lot like my Napoli team in terms of technique or tactical approach: Higuain isn't Pulici, and Insigne isn't Graziani. but they're as united as we were. They had an entire city behind them, just like Torino.
"De Laurentiis and Sarri's men will have to show themselves to be impervious to all of this, when someone tries to screw with them"
