Aurelio De Laurentiis on Napoli, Scudetti, Maradona, and Why He'd Cast McTominay (Soccer 4/11)

Marco Messina sits down with the film producer who took a bankrupt Napoli out of the third division and built them into Italian champions. Twice.

Aurelio De Laurentiis pulls back the curtain on the full story: the chaos of acquiring a club in ruins, the climb back through the divisions, and his unfiltered views on what's broken in the modern game: agent interference, fixture congestion, and a football industry that has lost the.
He opens up about the financial tightrope of competing against much richer clubs, the friction of telling managers what they can and can’t spend, and why last season’s title - not the historic 2023 Scudetto that ended a 33-year drought - hit differently and meant more. He also sizes up Scott McTominay for a future in front of the camera and shares a story about working with Diego Maradona on a film set.
To close, he turns his gaze to the bigger picture: Italy missing out on a third straight World Cup and the deep structural problems threatening the future of calcio.

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