Scott McTominay was never going to replicate Diego Maradona on the pitch, but rather remarkably he’s fitting in just as well off of it.
The Scotland midfielder made a surprise switch to Serie A from lifelong club Manchester United in the summer and from the moment he first stepped into the Italian sun, it was clear things were going to work out.
Napoli YouTubeThe Scot was buzzing when most would be overawed[/caption]
Walking out of Naples International Airport into a crowd of, arguably the most passionate fans in Europe, most other footballers would be overawed. But the 28-year-old’s grin said everything.
“From the first day he’s been saying it’s incredible,” talkSPORT’s European football journalist Andy Brassell said of the Napoli midfielder.
“Coming out of the airport and saying he can’t wait to play in front of these fans – this is what I wanted to be part of, part of a club, a team, a city that completely lives football.
“From that moment onwards it just sets the tone ‘I’m going to enjoy this and embrace it’ rather than other players who can be a little bit tentative.
“Quite a lot of high profile players have either found the intensity of Naples a bit much or they’ve refused to come and turned it down because they think it is too much like a goldfish bowl. He’s the complete opposite of that.”
Even Maradona, the iconic Argentine No.10 with Napoli’s stadium is named after and whom many consider the greatest footballer of all time, had a slight look of anxiety on his face. However, no such emotion was visible for McTominay who has struck the perfect note at every single opportunity.
A behind the scenes YouTube clip of his first day quickly set the fanbase alight when he was heard saying: “I’m here to win, though, not f*** around, remember.”
And win he has. Napoli have won 18 games from 29 in Serie A, and mounted a title charge almost as unexpected as when Maradona took them from nowhere to two league titles in the 1980s.
Their new midfield maestro has six goals and two assists in that run, putting the team head-to-head with Inter just a season on from a disastrous tenth-place finish that saw them go through three different managers.
Now they’ve got the right one in Antonio Conte, and as much as McTominay is crediting the former Chelsea coach for his success, it’s as much down to the player, with Conte ditching his usual 3-4-3 just five games into the campaign to get the best out of his new signing.
“The key player is [Stanislav] Lobotka,” Brassell explained. “He’s more of a holder and he’s been brilliant, he really allows McTominay off the leash.
“[Andre-Frank] Zambo-Anguissa does a lot of the box-to-box running so there are complimentary pieces around him that allow him to be daring and get around the box.
“Of course he intermittently did that at United when he was allowed, but here, rather than having to explain his existence or his worth, it’s completely the opposite, people at Napoli love him for what he is and the fact he leads the team in big moments.”
A regular scorer at United, McTominay has the second highest goal total of any Serie A midfielder this season with six, while another two assists show his importance.
He’s been masterful around the box, scoring with both feet, while an astonishing header against Udinese in February was instantly compared to Cristiano Ronaldo’s legendary NBA leap for Juventus in 2019, and understandably so.
An earlier effort, against Palermo in the Coppa Italia, also saw him kiss the badge straight after, the kind of gesture which can come back to bite, unless you’re McTominay.
“I think they know it’s sincere, that’s the important thing,” Brassell explained. “But I think it’s the way he plays too, he’s all action.
“They love a player who tries to meet them on their own terms, Napoli fans, someone who embraces the life and embraces the city and culture, which is exactly what Maradona did all those years ago so it’s massively, massively important.
“Nobody is saying he is Maradona or anything like that, but I think there is something in the way he relates to the club, the people and the city which is quite similar.”
La Gazzetta dello Sport, Italy’s leading sports newspaper, was just as effusive, with a story claiming: “Scott is already an idol of Naples, but he has become the symbol of Neapolitan pride.
“Because McTominay is a top player who chose Naples after a lifetime at Manchester United. He did it with conviction, he did it because he felt something special.”
In an earlier editorial, they praised: “The running. The raids. The goals. This is how the Scotsman became the great leader of Napoli. He was a bulldog, he transformed into a maestro.”
Maradona’s Napoli move is part of football folklore, and today the club’s stadium now bears his name following his death in 2020 at the age of 60.
Incredibly, though, 54,000-seater home that is falling apart, has only just broken capacity records this term, not when they won the title two years ago.
The Maradona has sold out nine times already this season, and a record four games in a row, which is even more impressive than it sounds, as Brassell explains.
“A lot of the seats have a really terrible view so to sell the stadium out is a lot harder than you’d imagine,” he said.
“The ones on the bottom deck are almost below ground level, it’s not really like a European football experience, it’s more South American, so to sell out the stadium means everyone wants to be there, and they’ve been able to put the prices up as well.”
Continuing on the religious experience of watching a Napoli match, Brassell added: “I was last in Naples back end of October and if you’re familiar with Italian football there’s a thriving culture of knock-off replica shirts.
“There were more McTominay ones than [Khvicha] Kvaratskhelia or [Romelu] Lukaku, which I think is very, very interesting, and he’s even more popular now than then.
“After Maradona the most popular shirt was McTominay which is quite funny as people in Naples struggle to pronounce his name properly, it’s normally ‘Scotto’.”
To sum up the love for the phenomenon up in Neapolitan terms, Brassell explained there is even a pizza named after their new hero.
More popular than Kvaratskhelia, the man who helped them land a first title in 33 years is big praise. Win another one and there could be newborn Neapolitan babies named ‘Scotto.’
