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The new squad rules for Serie A have taken effect, and as such Napoli have had to register a squadlist in Serie A for the first time. Previously, Serie A had no registration rules, but in an effort to shrink bloated squads and help teams better prepare for European competition rules, the FIGC enacted a 25-man squad rule with makeup rules loosely similar to those set out by UEFA.
The Napoli squad is fairly unsurprising. In addition to the 22 man Europa League squad announced earlier in the week, the partenopei were able to register three additional players to round it out to 25: promising young defender Sebastiano Luperto, reserve midfielder Jacopo Dezi -- and Jonathan De Guzman.
Yes, the intransigent Dutch-Canadian midfielder who was poor for long stretches of last season and blew up not one, not two, but three separate transfers last summer and who was left out of the Europa squad will be available for Napoli to use in Serie A. It actually does make sense to a degree -- problems aside, De Guzman's skillset makes him the most realistic choice in the team to back up Marek Hamsik as the more attacking of the three deeper midfielders.
Not in the squad, however, is Camilo Zuniga. The oft-injured Colombian wingback tried to get out of the club this summer, but couldn't find a move away until the ill-fated swap with Sampdoria for Roberto Soriano that died at the transfer deadline. Now he's out of both of Napoli's competitive squads, freezing him out of any playing time until January at the earliest. There's rumors that Zuniga and the team might agree to end his contract so he can leave on a free -- Napoli realistically aren't getting a remotely valuable fee for him so they may as well get his high wages off the books -- but for now at least, he's still training with the team. Who knows what his future holds.
It has been brought to my attention that the squad list I was working from was not entirely correct, and Zuniga is in the Napoli squad for Serie A. Unfortunately, there's about 10 different version of the squadlist running around right now, so I was apparently using the wrong one. That's my mistake, and the squad has been updated below.
As part of Serie A's new squad rules, Napoli are required to register eight players who were developed in Italy, using the same "three years between 15-21" rule UEFA uses for homegrown qualification in the Champions League and Europa League. Napoli meet that requirement with ease, fortunately, thanks in part to backups Dezi and Omar El Kaddouri.
Also not in the squad is Mariano Andujar, though some listings of the squad around the internet include him even though he makes the squad too large at 26 players. It's not like he'd be playing anyways, with three better goalkeepers in the squad already. In any case, he's expected to leave on loan for Estudiantes before the Argentina transfer window closes on September 10th.
The full 25-man squad available for Napoli in Serie A is listed below.
Goalkeepers: Rafael Cabral, Gabriel, Pepe Reina
Defenders: Elseid Hysaj+, Ivan Strinic, Henrique, Christian Maggio*, Vlad Chiriches, Kalidou Koulibaly, Faouzi Ghoulam, Raul Albiol, Sebastiano Luperto+
Midfielders: Allan, Mirko Valdifiori*, Jorginho*, Jonathan De Guzman, Marek Hamsik*, David Lopez, Jacopo Dezi*, Omar El Kaddouri*, Nathaniel Chalobah+
Forwards: Jose Callejon, Gonzalo Higuain, Dries Mertens, Manolo Gabbiadini*, Lorenzo Insigne*
* - Player trained in Italy
+ - Under-21 player, does not count against 25-man limit