Napoli got the biggest of their co-ownership issues resolved Thursday morning when they announced that Jorginho's rights had been fully redeemed from Hellas Verona ahead of the Thursday night deadline. Napoli spent €4.5 million to retain the Brazilian-Italian midfielder, raising their total investment in him to €10 million after initially buying half his contract for €5.5 million 18 months ago.
Verona apparently wanted much more than that, with rumors on Wednesday saying they were trying to get Napoli to pay €10 million more to redeem all of Jorginho's rights. Napoli, obviously, didn't really want to pay that much, but they were able to negotiate the fee down to a level they were more comfortable with.
Jorginho had an amazing start to his Napoli career, but this past season most fans came away disappointed. He started the season well, but hit a rough patch of form that saw him get kicked to the bench by Rafa Benitez for much of the second half of the season. He had a few match here and there and generally did well in them, but the end of Jorginho's season was marred by several poor defensive efforts that saw most of his support in the fanbase go up in smoke.
Still, there might be a future for Jorginho in Naples. His talents suit the deep midfield role Maurizio Sarri's tactics employ well, with a similar overall skillset to newly-arrived Mirko Valdifiori, who has thrived in that role over the last few years. Jorginho has much greater upside than Valdifiori, though, and if things go "right," he could shine under Sarri's tutelage and with some pointers from the veteran Valdifiori.
Of course, Napoli might just be aiming to use Jorginho in other ways. Torino are believed to be interested in adding him to their midfield, and Napoli have supposedly toyed with the idea of using either him or Duvan Zapata to help them acquire Matteo Darmian, or perhaps even using both players to reduce the fee as much as possible.
Either way, Jorginho is now fully a Napoli player. Whether that needs to be amended with "for now" remains to be seen, but Napoli now control his future.
