Mazzarri plays down quit rumours

Napoli manager Walter Mazzarri has denied reports that he has been in contact with any other Serie A clubs.

Mazzarri announced before his side’s 2-1 loss at 10-man Lecce that he could walk away at the end of the season which led to speculation that he had already been speaking to Juventus about taking over in Turin.

But after Napoli slumped to a third defeat in four, Mazzarri cleared the air on the rumours and said he would reevaluate his situation at the end of the season.

“As with every year, we need to sit round a table and understand if there are the conditions to begin a new campaign together. It’s what I have always done in my career,” Mazzarri said.

“We didn’t know that we were going to reach the Champions League, so now I don’t know what is going to be expected of us. If we finish third or fourth it will change the scenario.”

“I swear that I have not been in contact with any other club. I have to talk to Napoli first and that will be at the end of the season. If this rapport comes to an end, then we’ll see.”

Napoli still need one point from their final two matches to secure third position, which would see them enter the Champions League at the group stage next season, leaving Mazzarri to bemoan the defeat.

“We were naive and certain incidents proved decisive. Lecce managed to win with a great shot at the end. It was a tense encounter, but this is football,” he said.

Napoli’s cause was made harder when top-scorer Edinson Cavani was given a second yellow card after 74 minutes, and Mazzarri admitted the 24-year-old was a ‘little tired’ and driven by the chance to win the league’s Golden Boot.

That now seems unlikely after Udinese’s Antonio Di Natale scored a double on Sunday to take his tally to 28 league goals for the season, two ahead of Cavani.

Napoli midfielder Christian Maggio also was disappointed with the defeat, but hopes his side can wrap up third when they face Inter on Sunday.

“Yes, that was definitely not the Napoli team we’ve seen in recent games, we certainly wanted to win in order to secure the third position but today it didn’t happen; now we only need to look ahead and think about next Sunday,” Maggio said.

“We thought we would cause them more problems and we knew Lecce needed a victory to remain in Serie A next year so it was a very important game for them too. In some parts of the game we were playing well and we had some good opportunities, but today we didn’t have much luck.”