EXCLUSIVE MARINO: Napoli came close to signing Luka Modric
Pierpaolo Marino, Napoli's former Sporting Director, has exclusively revealed to calciomercato.com that the Partenopei came very close to signing Luka Modrid during his tenure. Marino was a part of the club’s front office from for the Azzurri’s epic climb from Serie C, Italy’s third Division, all the way to Serie A. Following his Napoli exit, he covered the same role at Atalanta for four years, before leaving the Dea and becoming a CM.com columnist.
In today’s piece, Marino takes us the behind the scenes of Luka Modric’s botched deal with Napoli, at a time when the Croatian International was only 20 year old.
It was 2006, and Napoli had just gained promotion to Serie B with four games in hand. Luigi Sorrentino, a lawyer and agent specializing in Balkan talent, called me to offer his congratulations for the team’s achievement. During the same call he also told me that he was given the permission to negotiate Niko Kranjcar’s move to another club.
Kranjcar didn’t want to renew his expiring contract with his club, Hajduk Split, and Sorrentino whispered to me that we could have had him for very little. The midfielder was also eligible to play in Serie B, as he holds EU citizenship.
Following that call I immediately asked Gianfranco Cinello and Armando Rizzo, two of Napoli’s best talent scouts, to watch Kranjcar in action and send me a report. Despite his great skills, Rizzo had doubts about Kranjcar’s aloof style of play, especially in in a very challenging league such as Serie B.
I was in two minds. Along with Luigi Sorrentino I decided to travel to Croatia to see Kranjcar live during Hajduk’s big rivalry game against Dinamo. I still remember which day it was: the 14th of May 2016.
I have to say that Kranjcar was actually really skilled, but it was another player who grabbed the attention: a certain Luka Modric.
He was only 20 year old, he had astonishing technical abilities and that day he was playing as a winger, both left and right. He also netted the winner.
At the end of the first half Sorrentino asked my thoughts on Kranjcar’s skills, but I swiftly brought Luka Modric into the conversation. I asked him why I have never heard about Modric before and I announced to him that at the end of the game I would make an offer do Dinamo Zagreb to sign the young midfielder.
Trouble is, Modric didn’t hold an EU-passport, and thus wouldn’t have been eligible to play in Serie B the following year. The plan was to sign him, let him play for Dinamo Zagreb for one more year before bringing him to Italy
Napoli’s president, Aurelio De Laurentiis, was very excited and he allowed me to make a € 5 million offer. I met the Croatian side the following day. Modric’s pricetag was ten million, which was our total budget for the transfer window campaign. Negotiations, by the way, were also obstructed by some bureaucratic problems that prevented Modric from signing with Napoli.
A few months later my happiness due to Napoli’s Serie A promotion was mitigated somewhat by the midfielder’s € 21 million move to Tottenham.
Pierpaolo Marino
Translated by Lorenzo Bettoni
