SSC Napoli are a club founded in the southern region of Italy in 1926. And over the years, it has been home to some of the most exciting and flamboyant players who have turned out in the club’s famous blue kit of the club.
In a country where the top honours have been shared around by the four major clubs in Juventus, Inter, AC Milan, and AS Roma, the Naples-based club has thus managed to win three Serie A titles, six Coppa Italia, two SuperCoppa Italiana and a UEFA Cup in its nearly 100-year history.
Thus, in this article, we have decided to come up with a list of the 10 best SSC Napoli players ever, and to do so, we’ve taken a very specific set of criteria into account, which are as follows:
Napoli’s third-highest appearance maker of all time, Moreno Ferrario joined the club from Varese in 1977, played 311 games for them in Serie A and made close to 400 appearances in all competitions until 1988. However, he was not a first-team player and had to wait until he debuted with the Italy U-21 squad to become a regular starter.
At the club, he helped them win a Serie A title and a Coppa Italia in the 1986-87 season. Ferrario joined Roma in 1988. During his 11-year stay at the club, he appeared in 396 games and scored 11 goals as a defender. 311 of these appearances were in the Italian Seria A.
Not many can surpass Edinson Cavani’s legacy in Naples. Having initially joined the club as part of a loan deal of €5 million with an option/obligation to purchase outright for €12 million, Cavani’s chemistry with fellow forwards Ezequiel Lavezzi and Marek Hamsik earned them the name “The Three Tenors” from the legendary singing quartet with the same title.
He played a crucial role in the club winning their first silverware in over 30 years. With five goals, he was also the leading scorer in the 2012 Coppa Italia campaign.
Cavani stayed in Naples until 2013, scoring 104 goals and providing 14 assists in just 138 games in all competitions before PSG signed him in 2013.
One of the greatest Napoli legends, Ciro Ferrara had a key role in five of the 11 title victories over the club’s nearly 100-year history. A club legend with both Napoli and Juventus, Ciro Ferrara graduated from Napoli’s youth academy before being promoted to the first team.
The left-back made close to 250 appearances for Napoli in a decade-long stint between 1984 and 1994. During his time in Naples, Ferrera came up with some crucial moments as he scored one of Napoli’s goals in their 1989 Uefa Cup final win.
In addition to the Uefa Cup, he won two Serie A titles (in 1986–87 and 1989–90), the 1987 Coppa Italia, and the 1990 Supercoppa Italiana with Napoli before joining Juventus in 1994.
Another legend who is part of Napoli’s golden era, Careca made an immediate impact when he joined the club back in 1987. The Brazilian possessed an amazing ability of arriving at the right place at the right moment. He also had a lot of speed in his armoury, which he used to significant effect.
He is regarded as one of the best Brazilian forwards of all time. He was a member of the infamous ‘Ma-Gi-Ca’ partnership, which included Diego Maradona and Bruno Giordano, and terrorised Serie A. During his stint in Naples, he scored 95 goals and helped the club to win the Serie A championship in 1990.
One of the best players and the captain of Napoli’s maiden Serie A title-winning team in 1987, Giuseppe Bruscolotti takes the sixth spot in the list.
Due to his physical strength, admirers dubbed him “Pal e fierr” (“iron pole”) throughout his career. Bruscolotti arrived in Naples from Sorrento in 1972 and stayed at the club for 16 years, making over 500 appearances for the club across all competitions, with 387 of them coming in Serie A.
He won five trophies in Naples, winning a league title, two Coppa Italia trophies and an Anglo-Italian League Cup.
One of Napoli’s finest, Antonio Juliano helped bring silverware for both his club and the Italian national side in the 1960s and 70s. He also made the third most appearances for Napoli behind Marek Hamsik and Bruscolotti.
Having come up thru the ranks from the academy setup to the first-team, Juliano stayed at Naples until the end of 1977-1978, appearing in 355 Serie A matches and 39 Serie B matches, trailing only Giuseppe Bruscolotti in overall appearances; he also played 72 matches in the Italian Cup and 39 in the UEFA Cup and Cup Winners’ Cup.
Throughout his time with the club, Juliano helped Napoli win two Coppa Italia titles, one Coppa delle Alpi and one Anglo-Italian League Cup.
Slovak Marek Hamsik is one of the modern-day greats for the Naples-based club. During his 12-year stint with Napoli, he became a club hero and a symbol of excellence in the middle of the pitch.
The Slovakian midfielder spent 12 seasons as the backbone of Napoli’s midfield. Not only that, but he also scored more than 10 goals in eight of the 12 seasons he featured for the club, a great output for someone who played deep in midfield.
Hamsik helped Napoli to two Coppa Italia trophies and a Supercoppa Italiana and broke records for the number of appearances (520) and goals (121) in all competitions. Since he left the club in 2019, Hamsik’s goal-scoring record was later broken by Dries Mertens.
Napoli were left depleted out wide after the club approved the departure of Ezequiel Lavezzi to Paris Saint-Germain in 2012. To fill that gap, they signed Dries Mertens from PSV Eindhoven in 2013 as he became then-manager Rafa Benitez’s first signing as manager.
The rest is history. The Belgium international ended up becoming one of Napoli’s greatest-ever players, making over 300 appearances for the club.
Since his arrival, Mertens has helped Napoli win the Coppa Italia and Supercoppa Italiana in 2014, and repeat the same feat later during the 2019-20 season. In 2022, with 148 goals for the club, and the club’s all-time highest goalscorer, Mertens left Naples to join Turkish club Galatasaray.
Attila Sallustro joined the club while it was still known as Internapoli and stayed for the majority of his career. He played for Napoli for 12 years, forming a strong attack alongside Antonio Vojak and Marcello Mihalich.
In total, he scored 108 goals for the club in 269 appearances across all competitions, making him Napoli’s fifth-highest goalscorer of all time. He also served as the club’s captain between 1933 and 1937.
Being a fan favourite, fans referred to him as “Il Veltro” and “Il Divino.” Due to his rich background, Sallustro chose not to take any financial pay from the club, as his father believed that it was unacceptable to earn a living in such a manner. However, he was rewarded with gifts, including a luxury motor car, a black Fiat Balilla 521.
Sallustro remained in Naples following his retirement until his death in 1983.
Diego Maradona inherited a once-great team that was on the verge of relegation at the end of the 1983-84 Serie A season in what was then Europe’s fiercest and turned it’s fortunes around to make it one of the best football clubs in the land.
During his time at the club, Napoli successfully broke the dominance of clubs like AC Milan, Juventus, Inter, and Roma. Not just that, no team in the south of the Italian Peninsula had ever won a league title. That was all about to change once Maradona arrived in Naples.
Led by the Argentine, Napoli won their first-ever Serie A title in 1986–87. Maradona’s era saw Napoli win two Serie A titles (1986-87 and 1989-90), the Coppa Italia in 1987, the Uefa Cup in 1989, and the Italian Super Cup in 1990.
Maradona scored 115 goals for Napoli between 1984 and 1991 and was the club’s leading goalscorer before Marek Hamsik broke the record in 2017.
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