With Napoli's Serie A opener approaching and the club finalising a loan deal for Chelsea centre-back Benoit Badiashile — with an option to buy reported at €27 million — Napoli right back Giovanni Di Lorenzo enters the new campaign as the one fixed point in a backline that is still taking shape around him.
The significance of that stability is not cosmetic. Napoli finished the 2025-26 season second in Serie A with 76 points from 38 matches, a record that reflects both Antonio Conte's organisational discipline and the structural reliability Di Lorenzo provides on the right side of that defence. In a squad where personnel continues to move — Ngonge linked to a move to Monza, Badiashile arriving from Chelsea, Martinelli reportedly discussed with Arsenal — the captain's continuity is a competitive asset that does not show up in transfer columns.
Di Lorenzo made 26 appearances across the season, contributing two goals and one assist while carrying an average rating of 6.90. Those numbers are modest by attacking standards, but they misrepresent his function. A right back operating under Conte's Napoli is not asked to manufacture chances; he is asked to hold shape, press intelligently, and provide the platform from which others operate. Di Lorenzo, at 33, does precisely that.
The Badiashile deal, if confirmed, addresses a genuine need. Napoli conceded 36 goals in 38 league matches — a respectable figure, but one that Conte will want to reduce. A centre-back of Badiashile's profile, operating alongside an experienced captain who understands Conte's defensive requirements from the inside, gives the backline both physical presence and positional coherence.
What the summer's activity also clarifies is where Di Lorenzo sits in the club's thinking. He is not a player being managed toward an exit or rotated into uncertainty. He is the reference point — the player around whom Conte builds his defensive structure, and the one whose positional discipline allows the system to function when other pieces are still settling.
At 33, with an AI overall rating of 71 and a ceiling assessed at 72, Di Lorenzo is not a player whose ceiling is the story. His floor is. In a squad navigating a busy final week of the transfer window, that kind of reliability is exactly what Conte's Napoli needs going into the new season.