Marek Hamsik tells Edinson Cavani to come home to Napoli

With Napoli still searching for a top-shelf striker this summer and their top target’s team not being particularly interested in letting him go, their captain has made an interesting effort in order to help his team out. Reportedly, Marek Hamsik made a phone call to former teammate and close friend Edinson Cavani to try to push him towards making a return to Napoli.

Now, the reports circulating in Italy and France about this rely on a lot of supposition. They seem to basically be assuming that because Hamsik called Cavani, it has to be a recruitment call. There would obviously be nothing else two friends could talk about, right? Except, you know, life, the universe, and everything. Minor detail.

But there is one thing that makes the idea plausible. Cavani and Aurelio De Laurentiis don’t exactly have the best relationship after how things went down between them in the summer of Cavani’s departure, with Cavani going so far as to say since then that as long as De Laurentiis is with Napoli, he won’t come back no matter how much he wants to. ADL has reportedly been trying to mend that fence in recent days, however, and a talk with Marekiaro would be sure to help ease that process along.

Assuming, again, that’s what they even talked about. Let’s be honest, Cavani probably asked Marek to send him some local snacks he can’t get in Paris.

While the idea of getting back the Edinson Cavani that became a superstar at Napoli is incredibly enticing, there’s a major problem with that idea: by all appearances, that Cavani is gone. He hasn’t been seen since he left Naples, and even if you chalk it up to misuse by Paris Saint-Germain, Cavani hasn’t shown that form or style with Uruguay either.

He’s not the hard-charging, free-wheeling, keeper-terrifying striker he used to be. The modern Cavani is much more tentative and inefficient and doesn’t create nearly as much danger with his movement. He’s also a much worse finisher than he once was, and let’s be honest: Cavani’s finishing was never exactly lethal.

Unless Napoli are certain they can resurrect Cavani back to his best days, paying the kind of price PSG would be sure to demand would make this a deal that, despite how beloved Cavani is, they should be hesitant to take. He’s not the same player any more, and at 29 years old, he’s probably not going to get back to being that player again. It’s sad, but that’s one of the harsh realities of this sport.

We love you, Edi. We’re just not sure you can be what Napoli need right now.