Napoli’s Stanislav Lobotka, Serie A’s Own Andres Iniesta

In case you hadn’t noticed, Napoli are pretty good lately. Luciano Spalletti’s side are currently the talk of Europe, as they sit 1^st in Serie A and 1^st in their Champions League group, undefeated and carving teams apart seemingly at will.

This wasn’t what many expected in the summer with the departure of big players. Kalidou Koulibaly, Dries Mertens, Lorenzo Insigne and Fabian Ruiz all left Naples after years of brilliant service. There was a sense that Napoli president Aurelio De Laurentiis was scaling back on ambition following another missed opportunity to win the Scudetto last season.

And yet, Napoli look much the better side for those departures. Kim-Min Jae has aptly replaced Koulibaly in the heart of the defence and Khvicha Kvaratskhelia has already made Neapolitans forget all about Insigne.

The goals are coming from everywhere, with 14 different players getting on the score sheet. But the real strength of this Napoli side rests in midfield, and in particular the diminutive-but-stocky frame of Stanislav Lobotka.

Lobotka’s elevation to Napoli focal point is down to Spalletti. The Slovak was signed in January 2020, under the advice of club legend Marek Hamsik, but found it difficult to break into the first team. Ruiz, Piotr Zielinski, Tiemoue Bakayoko and Diego Demme, who signed along with Lobotka, were all preferred choices for then-coach Rino Gattuso in a 4-2-3-1 system.

By his own admission, things looked so bad for Lobotka by the end of the 2020/21 season that he was considering leaving Napoli, 18 months after the club spent €24m on him. But fate intervened in two ways.

Firstly, Spalletti took over from Gattuso in the summer of 2021 and everything changed for Lobotka. Spalletti was an admirer of Lobotka’s and had wanted him when he was manager of Inter. Injuries kept him ruled out for the first portion of Spalletti’s first season in Naples, but upon returning in late November, Lobotka has been an almost ever-present in Spalletti’s 4-3-3.

The other turning point came when he suffered from tonsillitis just before Gattuso’s departure. He had to undergo two throat operations and was subsequently forced to eat little. The result was Lobotka losing nine kilograms in weight and by the time he returned, he was a different player, his pace noticeably quicker. Many had labelled him as ‘fat’, but since the beginning of last season all Lobotka’s been doing is making critics eat their words.

Lobotka’s greatest attribute is his low centre of gravity and willingness to receive and pass the ball. It can often be missed on camera, but Lobotka’s always searching for the tiniest of spaces to operate in, always open to having the ball and manipulating space to gain the advantage.

Lobotka possesses that Andres Iniesta-like quality of being able to spin in either direction while facing his own goal. Now, not for a moment is Lobotka in the Iniesta bracket of player, but there are semblances of the great Spaniard in him, something even Spalletti remarked after the opening day 5-2 win away at Verona.

His stocky build also makes it difficult for the opposing players to push Lobotka off the ball, and in many respects he’s also reminiscent of the hugely under-appreciated Chilean David Pizarro, who Spalletti had at Udinese and then in his first spell at Roma in the late 2000s. Lobotka, Iniesta and Pizarro aren’t the kind of players to win awards, but they are players’ players and pivotal to a team’s success.

Fabio Capello, a man famously difficult to please, is a big fan of the Slovakian, believing there isn’t “anyone in Serie A like him” and calling him the most complete midfielder in his role in the league. Former Lazio goalkeeper Luca Marchegiani likened him to Andrea Pirlo and Marco Verratti.

The trio of Lobotka, Andre-Frank Anguissa and Zielinski comprise the best midfield in Serie A, each compliment each other and possess characteristics the others lack. Yet it’s Lobotka who knits it together at the base of the midfield, a regista who loves having the ball at his feet. No other midfielder in Serie A has a higher percentage of accurate passes than Lobotka, with 94%.

Ruiz’s departure to Paris Saint-Germain last summer effectively gave Lobotka the keys to the midfield kingdom, and where Ruiz was technically exquisite but laboured on the ball, Lobotka matches him for technique but moves the ball faster, playing one or two-touch with Anguissa and Zielinski in the middle or full-backs Giovanni Di Lorenzo and Mario Rui. Napoli are a much more dynamic side in Spalletti’s second season without Ruiz, and also Insigne, to slow things down. Moreover, and most importantly, Lobotka has the aggression to press, another thing Ruiz lacks. Against Verona, for example, Lobotka recovered 13 balls.

His form hasn’t gone unnoticed either. Reports from Italy have linked him with a move to the PremierPINC
League, with Liverpool, Chelsea and Man United all reportedly interested. Yet it seems that Napoli will tie Lobotka down with a new deal.

The turnaround in Lobotka’s fortune, from spare part to outstanding player, has been extraordinary, and it would be little exaggeration to say Napoli aren’t the same side without him.

Nearly three years after recommending him, Hamsik’s faith in Lobotka has been wholly justified, Serie A’s own little Iniesta.