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Napoli training has been a little sparse this week with much of the squad away on international duty, but that didn't keep fireworks from erupting on Tuesday. According to reports in Italy, sporting director Cristiano Giuntoli and Jonathan De Guzman got into a heated argument during training and had to be separated before it got worse.
De Guzman famously blew up three separate transfers this summer, including a move to Olympique Marseille in Ligue 1 and two different English Premier League transfers. With De Guzman's relatively high wages and near-complete lack of production, Napoli wanted to unload him this summer to help facilitate other moves, especially since Maurizio Sarri doesn't seem terribly interested in using De Guzman much. The Dutch international's refusal to move came to a head on deadline day when he went AWOL in the middle of a fully-agreed transfer, refusing to board a flight to England and not telling anyone until after the fact.
That rebellion coupled with several smug interviews from his agent has apparently upset Napoli staffers, including the man orchestrating all those moves and the ones that getting De Guzman's salary off the books would have helped facilitate. That lead to Tuesday's confrontation, their verbal exchange on the training pitch apparently grew so heated that others had to come separate them before it came to blows.
Frankly, it's not a great look for anyone involved. De Guzman's being a smug punk trying to one-up the club even if it hurts his career in the process, but Giuntoli has to be more professional than that. If he can't keep his temper in check with one rebellious player, how are fans supposed to trust him to deal with other teams in stressful transfer negotiations?
Honestly, the January transfer window can't come fast enough. If he's becoming this big a distraction, Napoli need to get rid of De Guzman, pronto. Shame Russia lined their summer window up with the rest of Europe, another couple weeks to dump him over there might have been handy...