Player Focus: How Higuaín Has Covered for Cavani's Absence

In Naples’ Piazza Mercato, the paint isn’t yet dry. You can smell the fumes, still hear the rattle of the spray can. A mural has appeared on one of its walls, signed by the local graffiti artist Raffo. It’s of Gonzalo Higuaín screaming in celebration. Vesuvius erupts with puffs of green, white and red smoke, the colours of the tricolor, the colours of the Scudetto. Naples has adopted him as one of its own. Argentines, almost all of whom are considered the children of Diego Maradona by Neapolitans, are welcomed unconditionally.

When Higuaín came through arrivals at Rome’s Fiumicino airport in the summer he was confronted by hundreds of Napoli supporters. They already had a chant for him, adapting one about Maradona scoring away at Juventus. “True Argentines don’t play in Turin,” claimed a banner outside Napoli’s Castelvolturno training ground.

Higuaín got the full Naples treatment. He had a pizza made in his honour - his name and number appearing in mozzarella, the tomato base covered in rocket and green pesto, a camouflage effect like that seen on the club’s new third shirt. A figurine of Higuaín was moulded and placed in Naples’ popular nativity scenes and a firework - il Pipita - named after him ahead of New Year. Trust me, it’s loud. But not as deafening or spine tingling as when he scores at the San Paolo and Decibel Bellini, the stadium announcer, screams GON-ZA-LO and the crowd roars back HI-GUA-IIIIN! over and over again.

Footballers are king in Naples. Like some royals - think Audrey Hepburn’s character in A Roman Holiday - they crave a normal life. The attention can be suffocating. You can’t go out without being mobbed. When you stay in peace isn’t guaranteed either.

Take Ezequiel Lavezzi for instance. He used to have a villa in a private cove along the bay of Naples. Still, that didn’t stop dinghies and boats full of Napoli supporters pulling in to catch a glimpse of El Pocho, their idol. It was one of the reasons he left but oh how he misses it now. “Here in Paris if the restaurant is full they tell you it’s full,” Lavezzi explained to Sportweek. “If you want to wait, you can wait. If not, ciao. Even if you’re called Lavezzi.”

The cold haughty indifference of the Parisien couldn’t find a starker contrast than the warmth of the so-pleased-to-meet-you Neapolitan. If there was no room for Lavezzi at a restaurant, they’d make room. A table would suddenly appear and he would be waited on hand and foot. Higuaín adores that affection. He claims he didn’t have it in Madrid.

“At the Bernabeu, they never dedicated a chant to me,” he said. Maybe it was political. Higuaín was an inconvenience to Real’s president Florentino Perez. He was a Ramon Calderon signing. Not a Galactico. You got the impression Perez wanted his striker Karim Benzema to do better than Higuaín because it would make him look better by the same token too.

Imagine how that made Higuain feel. Unwanted? Unloved? He could have gone to Arsenal, safe, sterile, secure Arsenal. Instead he went to Napoli, raw, primal, edgy Napoli, a club that captures the imagination of all Argentines, a city where the scugnizzo or urchin is heralded like the pibe in Buenos Aires. He may need a “translator” to understand local kid Lorenzo Insigne, but they speak the same language, they have things in common. Like learning their trade playing on the street, the school of hard knocks, which perhaps prepared Higuaín for the bang he took on the chin diving off Paolo Cannavaro’s boat and into the rocks off Capri soon after joining.

He’s taken a few more in Serie A. But he likes it. Having a former defender as a father who played for Boca and River has given him that know-how when it comes to shrugging off centre-backs. No more so has he needed it than now in Serie A. It’s been a challenge. “Before I came here, everyone said that football’s more tactical in Italy and I can confirm that’s really the case,” he told Ole. “In most games our opponents defend with five at the back and it’s more complex [for a lone striker] to attack and find space. Finding it was easier in Spain.”

Replacing Edinson Cavani, the departing Capocannoniere in Serie A, he of 104 goals in three years at Napoli, wasn’t supposed to be easy either, but Higuain has made supporters soon forget El Matador. How so? By being decisive. He found the net four times in his first five games, bringing wins against last season’s Champions League runners’ up Borussia Dortmund and AC Milan at San Siro, Napoli’s first triumph under the Madonnina since April 13, 1986.

Interviewed by Il Mattino this week, Gabriel Batistuta - still Argentina’s all-time top scorer - offered his opinion that Higuaín is better than Cavani. “Gonzalo supplies assists, he gets back into midfield, imposes the team’s attacking play, gets the team higher up the pitch and is present in the goal area. He might not be as conspicuous as Cavani in the sense that he will not score the same number of goals, but he is more complete as a player and I prefer him. He comes from Real Madrid where he did well. Moreover he’s a regular for Argentina. He has nothing to envy in terms of experience.”

Batistuta makes a number of valid points even if there is self-interest in promoting an Argentine ahead of a Uruguayan. Still, you don’t partner Cristiano Ronaldo for club and Lionel Messi for country for years unless you’re a top player. But let’s take Batistuta’s claim that Higuain is a “more complete” player.

Cavani had scored 18 goals in Serie A at this stage last season [and was about to go on a 729-minute drought]. Higuaín has 12. Combine that figure with assists though and they’re a lot closer. Cavani had just 2. Higuaín has 7. No forward has more assists in Serie A this season. Only Francesco Totti and Alessio Cerci have as many. No forward has combined for more goals in Serie A [19].

So if your definition of a “more complete” player is being a creator as well as finisher, then Batistuta is justified in his opinion. If it includes work-rate and tracking back so often as to appear like an auxiliary full-back, a highlight of Cavani’s game just as much, if not more so, than Higuain’s, then you have to say it doesn’t really hold up to scrutiny.

What isn’t up for debate is how well Napoli’s succession planning has played out in the forward position. It’s been much better, say, than Tottenham’s attempt to replace Gareth Bale with Erik Lamela [and others]. Higuaín has been involved in 26 of Napoli’s goals in all competitions this season [17 scored, 9 assisted]. He has become indispensable and will lead the line this evening as his team look to overturn a 3-2 first leg deficit against Roma to reach the final of the Coppa Italia.  

With the Europa League, that remains the only realistic silverware available to Napoli this season even though Higuaín has refused to give up hope on the Scudetto until it’s mathematically impossible. At the moment they are 13 points behind Juventus, they have lost the games that matter at the top and have thrown away points against teams they should be beating. A closer run thing was expected. Then again it’s a transition year. Napoli have a new coach, new players, new system and new style of play. Maybe next season will be their season. Higuain hopes so.

“I want to do what Maradona did,” he told today’s La Gazzetta dello Sport. “First I’ll win the World Cup and then the Scudetto, just like him. He triumphed in Mexico with Argentina in 1986 and, a year later, made Napoli go crazy. Yep. That’s it. If I were to make this dream come true it would really be the maximum.” Indeed, it would.

How many goals will Higuain end up on this season? Let us know in the comments below