Video: De Bruyne on ‘crazy' Napoli fans and ‘ambitious' team
Kevin De Bruyne assures Napoli 'are ambitious and want to win, so it was a really nice project to come into' and he already realised the fans are 'a bit crazy.'
The midfielder completed the transfer this week and was a free agent after his contract with Manchester City was allowed to run down.
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Napoli have published his first interview since joining the club on their social media channels.
MANCHESTER, ENGLAND – MAY 02: Kevin De Bruyne of Manchester City celebrates scoring his team's first goal during the Premier League match between Manchester City FC and Wolverhampton Wanderers FC at Etihad Stadium on May 02, 2025 in Manchester, England. (Photo by)
'I'm a winner, I want to win games,' confessed De Bruyne.
'I've always been like this, I hate losing.'
He had plenty of alternatives, including more lucrative ones in MLS or Saudi Arabia, but the combination of Serie A football and the lifestyle in Naples made it an easy decision.
'The team won the Scudetto last year, so they are in the Champions League. I'm hopeful that we can create something good for the future together.
'The team wants to win, they are ambitious, it looks like a really good team put together, so for me it was a really nice project to come into and hopefully I can help the team get their ambitions through.'
LONDON, ENGLAND – MAY 25: Kevin De Bruyne of Manchester City arrives at the stadium prior to the Premier League match between Fulham FC and Manchester City FC at Craven Cottage on May 25, 2025 in London, England. (Photo by)
Napoli fans already made their presence felt when he arrived for his medical, even if it was in Rome rather than Naples.
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'I remember it was really loud. The supporters were a bit crazy! But that's good, I think I understand a little bit how Naples works, how the city is behind the team, and this is also something I wanted to come into.
'At the beginning, maybe I need to adapt a little bit, but if you have so many people behind the team, it's going to be a nice atmosphere for us to deliver.'
De Bruyne will be working with fellow Belgium international Romelu Lukaku, while ex-Napoli star Dries Mertens confessed he also helped pave the way for this move.
'I've known Romelu since I was 13 years old. He spoke a lot of good words about the team, the city, so I am excited to do good things together.
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'Romelu and Dries obviously know the city really well, they explained a little bit how it works, how the people are. I understand a bit of Italian, obviously I need to get used to it and learn more.
'I'm excited, it is something that is very new for me, I lived in England for 10 years, but I think it is going to be a nice experience for me, for my family, and I'm looking forward to it.'
De Bruyne's first Napoli interview
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Yahoo
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Messi shows glimpses of his genius on Fifa's stage of fakery in Club World Cup opener
Lionel Messi during Inter Miami's Club World Cup match against Al Ahly. 'Watching him you got that feeling of a truly great footballer who can still see it all, but just can't call the shapes into being.' Lionel Messi during Inter Miami's Club World Cup match against Al Ahly. 'Watching him you got that feeling of a truly great footballer who can still see it all, but just can't call the shapes into being.' Photograph: SportsWell, this was at least a first. Gianni was right on that front. On a clammy, boisterous, vaguely hallucinogenic night at the Hard Rock Stadium, the opening act of Fifa's billion dollar death star, the newly bulked and tanned Club World Cup, did produce something genuinely new. This was surely the first major sporting event where the opening ceremony was infinitely more entertaining, and indeed comprehensible as a basic human activity, than the sporting spectacle that followed. 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New York Times
28 minutes ago
- New York Times
Auckland City FC: ‘We are the working-class team at the FIFA Club World Cup'
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Den Heijer took jobs where he could, including selling ornamental trees for a company run by one of DFS's sponsors. 'The town makes money from growing those trees and selling them all over Europe,' he explains. 'I would be standing in nursery fields, tying trees to bamboo fences and then putting them in trucks. I thought, 'What am I doing? This is not my dream'. But when I thought about coming back to New Zealand, that would be like admitting I'd failed.' The option was soon taken away. Lockdowns prevented Den Heijer and his partner, who he met during those days in the Netherlands, from travelling to New Zealand until March 2021. But when he did get back, it was a turning point. He signed initially with Auckland United, his current team's local rivals, before joining City in 2023. In the period since, he has helped win the domestic National League once, and OFC Champions League three times, and is now participating in his third Club World Cup. 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New York Times
28 minutes ago
- New York Times
How Premier League transfers really work in 2025 – and are rules being broken?
Many of us have signed a footballer in our time. We've approached their club, negotiated a fee, spoken to the player's representatives, agreed personal terms, crossed our fingers for good news about the medical and finally completed the deal. But while Football Manager and other simulators might offer a representation of how transfers would work if everyone stuck to the letter of the rules, in the real world, these moves effectively happen in reverse. Advertisement 'It happens in the other direction,' an experienced football agent tells The Athletic. 'I dare say there's probably five per cent of clubs in the world that do it that (correct) way. The other 95 per cent always agree the player's deal in advance, or certainly the majority of the player's deal. 'Virtually no one is bidding for a player anymore without already knowing that they're going to come to their football club, or have a strong interest in signing for that club.' 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The sporting director we talked to says he has often been approached by agents in recent years proposing clients of theirs as possible signings, but that very few of those suggestions are taken further. 'I can't think of any times where there's been a player put to me that's been better than the players on our shortlist, or that we didn't already know was available,' he says. 'Now and again, you might get the one put to you that you didn't think would be feasible or didn't think you could afford and that can be interesting but, nine times out of 10, the players put to you by agents are below the standard of the ones already on your shortlist.' Clubs are not allowed to contact players who are under contract elsewhere, either directly or through their representatives, without written permission from the individual's current employers, according to Premier League rules. The exception to that is where clubs from another country can legally open negotiations from January in the year a player's contract is due to expire about a free-agent move when it does run out, while the Premier League's regulations say you can speak to targets from the third Saturday in May if their contract is up that summer. Advertisement In reality, though, clubs do negotiate terms with players or their representatives in private, often over deals that never come to fruition (because the club-to-club negotiations break down or the would-be destination team opt for other targets). This involves recruitment staff or sporting directors sounding out potential signings, usually via agents, to gauge their interest and assess possible costs. The agent and sporting director explained to The Athletic that this goes unpunished because clubs rarely, if ever, flag up that it's going on to the league — mainly because they are doing it too with players they are interested in. The Premier League has the power to investigate an illegal approach even if no complaint has been received, but any investigation would depend on enough information and evidence being available. 'Really, it's the way it's always worked,' says the agent. 'Very occasionally, a club might complain about it if they're going for promotion or trying to stay in a league and they think their player is being unsettled. But almost all of the time, they do nothing because they know they're going to do the same thing themselves in the next transfer window, and people in glass houses can't throw stones.' The rules remain in place, but clubs don't kick up a stink if they're being broken, so governing bodies don't sanction, and working around them has become accepted practice to help the transfer system run smoothly. Much of the groundwork for any transfer is done before sporting directors at the buying clubs get fully involved, with a modern recruitment team's responsibilities stretching beyond studying potential signings and compiling reports on them. 'They watch the players, then they will draw up their shortlist for a centre-forward, for example, and present that to me,' says the sporting director. 'It will contain everything in terms of the possible cost of the deal, and they won't present a player to me if they don't know the player is interested — or at least think he might be interested. Advertisement 'So at that stage, I will know that a player is interested, what the approximate salary is going to be and probably the approximate transfer fee. Even though nothing is finalised, I would say those presentations are usually accurate to about 85 or 90 per cent.' Once sporting directors decide a deal is feasible and attractive, arrangements will usually be made to speak discreetly to the player. In most cases, the selling club will be aware of the general potential for somebody to leave due to conversations with their agent, but they are usually unaware of specific conversations between players and specific buyers. The agent adds: 'I'd say 90 per cent of the time, the player will have either a telephone conversation or face-to-face conversation with the manager (usually via video call), sporting director or both at the buying club. 'That chat will involve, 'Where do you see me playing?', 'Where do you see the club going?', all this kind of stuff, and often they are quite selfish conversations about what incentives are there for the player. Those conversations normally come weeks in advance — as soon as clubs know where they're going to be next season (in terms of which division they will play in). 'But clubs will often have six or seven plates spinning for any one position. They might have the same conversations with six or seven players, then they will decide which one best suits them and best fits their budget. So a lot of the time, things won't go any further than those conversations and no one will ever find out about them.' Once those discussions are completed and a club has decided on their preferred target, the sporting director and the player's agent will attempt to come to a deal in principle on personal terms — wages, bonuses, et cetera. While, according to the rules, clubs should agree a transfer fee before the team doing the buying ever speak to the player involved, in 2025, the official bid is normally the final part of the process. Clubs want a high level of confidence a deal can be completed before lodging a bid with the player's current employers. And negotiations on transfer fees can sometimes be little more than a formality. Advertisement The player's agent, in an effort to make a deal as smooth as possible, will often obtain an 'asking price' from a selling club to pass on to would-be buyers, so suitors will know roughly where to pitch their opening offer. Clubs, however, tend to take such information with a pinch of salt. 'They give us a figure, which is never right, because they want to have us interested,' says the sporting director. 'It's almost always a bit lower than the club actually want. To be honest, whenever I get a figure like that, I normally add about 15 per cent to try to get to a realistic figure.' Negotiations over a fee can still involve much to and fro, especially if a club are reluctant sellers, or if more than one potential buyer is on the scene, at which point a bidding war can ensue. But even in those cases, a player may already have made a firm decision over where they would rather go. The agent says: 'Usually, we will say to any other clubs, 'The player prefers to go somewhere else, but we'll keep you updated'. Sometimes, if a club is especially reluctant to sell, players might take extreme action to try to force through a move. That may include refusing to train or play, or something less extreme.' Matheus Nunes was an example of a player staying away from training when he looked to secure a move from Wolverhampton Wanderers to Manchester City in the summer 2023 window. Players who do that risk punishment from their clubs, most likely fines, but in almost every case the benefits of getting the sought-after move far outweigh the feasible sanctions. 'I have never encouraged a player to down tools,' says the agent. 'I know some players and agents do it, but I've always thought that's too much. You have to show some respect to the club that is paying the player's wages. 'We do sometimes put in a transfer request and find a way to make that public, to apply a bit of pressure, but that is as far as I would ever go.' Once all the financial aspects are agreed, the final stage of a transfer is the medical. Contrary to common belief, these do not provide a binary 'pass-or-fail' outcome. Instead, they are a series of tests designed to inform the buying club of any medical or fitness issues that might make their investment a greater risk. Sometimes, though, the results that come back can lead to a transfer being renegotiated, or even cancelled altogether. In 2020, defender Nathan Ferguson's move from West Bromwich Albion to Crystal Palace was called off, then revived on renegotiated terms, after his medical revealed knee issues. A minor concern in these circumstances might result in the buying club seeking a reduced fee to reflect the added risk, while a bigger problem might see them pulling the plug altogether. Usually though, the results provide an all-clear and the deal proceeds as agreed, completing a process that happens the opposite way around to how many fans would expect.
