It looks like American forward Vincenzo Bernardo will be staying with SSC Napoli this spring after turning down several offers from throughout Europe. Bernardo had drawn interest from Spain, England, Romania, Belgium, Greece, and among several Italian Serie B and C teams. The strongest offer came from Serie B side Brescia which offered to buy joint ownership (50-50) of the young player - an offer Napoli refused.So, Bernardo will stay with the club this spring, training 70-80% of the time with the first team but will be loaned out short term to the New York Stars to play in the prestigious Torneo Viareggio. While he remains available for the US U-20 team, some interesting whispers are coming out of the Castel Volturno clubhouse; that the Italian national team has asked the club for information on Bernardo.
If true, this comes as no surprise since not 48 hours after this article appeared on Soccer Times, a televised report appeared on Sky24 (Italian national news channel) claiming that the US was "calling up young Italian players" in a tone which indicated the Stars and Stripes were poaching foreign youth players. They seem to conveniently forget that the next great hope of the Azzuri, Giuseppe Rossi, was born in the same US state as Bernardo, New Jersey.
It only makes sense that someone from the Italian youth program would want to know more about Bernardo and possibly Nazzani since both are up and coming players within their Serie A teams' reserve systems. So, I wouldn't read to much into it...yet.
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3 comments:
Do you know why Bernardo isn't with the current U-20 camp? Nazzani's there, but not Vinny...
Its because he was loaned to the New York Stars (a youth team) to play in the Viareggio Tournament which runs from 9-23 FEB. Can't do both at the same time.
Ciao,
Chris
Chris,
Didn't Bernardo get kicked out of the last US camp (along w/ Arguez, Nazzani, and the other Hertha kid)?
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