Alessandro Buongiorno, Napoli's first-choice central defender, remains absent from pre-season as Massimiliano Allegri completes the opening phase of the Dimaro camp — and the picture forming around the 27-year-old's return is no clearer now than when the squad first gathered in Trentino.
The significance is structural. Buongiorno finished the 2025-26 Serie A season having played 33 matches, contributing one assist and carrying an average rating of 6.80 — numbers that made him the anchor of a defence that conceded 36 goals across 37 league games while Napoli accumulated 73 points and finished second. Allegri inherits that defensive record as a baseline. Without Buongiorno available to train, he cannot yet know how much of it was system and how much was the defender himself.
Allegri, for his part, has kept his public focus deliberately narrow. After Napoli beat Carrarese 2-0 in their second Dimaro friendly, the new Napoli head coach said the club would evaluate what they have at the end of the transfer window, and that the market is "frozen for everyone." He described the opening camp as a positive start, emphasising the clean sheet rather than the scoreline. That framing — patience, process, no promises — is consistent with a coach who knows his squad is incomplete.
The irony is that Buongiorno's absence makes the transfer question more urgent even as Allegri declines to press it. Napoli's defensive solidity last season was not accidental; it was built on a back line that conceded fewer than a goal per game. Cover at centre-back is not a luxury option in that context. It is load management for a player who, when fit, is the first name on the teamsheet.
Buongiorno's AI overall score of 65 out of 100 suggests a defender still ascending rather than one at his ceiling. At 27, the developmental window is real. But development requires minutes, and minutes require fitness — and fitness requires a pre-season that, so far, he has not had.
Allegri's Napoli will eventually need to answer the question Dimaro cannot: whether Buongiorno returns in time to be properly integrated before competitive football begins, or whether the club enters the new season with its most important defensive piece still finding his rhythm.