A surprise for some people, but not everyone: For at least a couple of years now calciomercato.com has been talking about Napoli President Aurelio De Laurentiis and his admiration for Gabon striker Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang. In fact, his admiration goes back further than that; right back to 2011 when the 27-year-old was based at Milan.
 

After Aubameyang headed to Borussia Dortmund in 2013, what could have once become a reality, became just a dream. At the time the player was affordable and the German only paid €15 million to secure his services. Napoli looked elsewhere, and splashed out €40 million on Gonzalo Higuain. But De Laurentiis has never hidden his love for the player and he was earmarked with the proceeds of Pipita’s mega summer move to Juventus. Dortmund however, had an optimum relationship at that time and once again, Napoli was left dreaming.  

Aubameyang has always maintained that he would consider moving back to Serie A but not even an offer of €75 million last summer was enough to get the Bundesliga giants to consider entering into negotiations. De Laurentiis stated at the time that his current coach Maurizio Sarri felt that the player would not fit into his system at the San Paolo but if Aubameyang’s relationship with his current employer is deteriorating on a daily basis as we are lead to believe, the door could once again be open. The only problem for De Laurentiis this time would be to find the river of millions needed to satisfy his counterpart in Germany.

By Giovanni Scotto. Translated by Steve Mitchell