Lorenzo Lucca, Napoli's 25-year-old forward, scored twice in a 6-2 pre-season victory against Aris Thessaloniki on August 13, sharing the scoresheet with Kevin De Bruyne and Scott McTominay in the club's final friendly before the Serie A season begins.
The timing matters. Lucca enters 2025-26 carrying a season rating of 4.42 across six appearances, with one league goal and no assists to his name from the previous campaign. Those numbers describe a player who has not yet convinced — and a brace in a pre-season friendly does not rewrite that verdict. What it does is provide a reference point. Conte's Napoli, sitting second in the table on 76 points after 38 matches, need their centre-forward to produce volume. Lucca has not done that consistently enough.
The context around him has shifted. Romelu Lukaku's departure — with Napoli and Fenerbahçe closing in on a €6m fee shared with Chelsea — removes a presence that both competed with Lucca and, in some readings, excused the club from demanding more of him. That buffer is gone. The number nine shirt and its responsibilities now belong to Lucca without qualification.
A double against Aris does not settle the question of whether he can carry that load across a full Serie A season. His AI overall score of 53 out of a possible 100, with a projected ceiling of 62, suggests a player whose development curve is real but not yet steep. There is headroom. Whether Napoli's system under Antonio Conte creates the conditions to unlock it is the more pressing variable.
One note of concern from the Aris match: midfielder Vergara sustained an injury that required evaluation, though the nature and severity were not confirmed in available reports. It is a minor shadow on an otherwise straightforward afternoon for the squad.
Lucca's pre-season form is a data point, not a conclusion — but after two previous pieces framing his situation in terms of uncertainty and structural pressure, he has at least responded with goals when the stage was low-stakes enough to allow it. The harder test comes when the points count.