Fernando Llorente was allowed to leave Tottenham Hotspur in the summer and he has now returned to Serie A with Napoli.
Fernando Llorente knows how it feels to lose on the biggest stage.
The Spanish striker has lost twice in the Champions League final in the last four years, going down 3-1 to Barcelona with Juventus in 2015 before suffering the most heartbreaking of defeats yet again in May as Tottenham Hotspur failed to turn up against Liverpool in Madrid.
So no wonder Llorente has set his sights on finally claiming European football’s biggest prize at the third time of asking after being unveiled as Napoli’s new number nine.
“If I had to decide, I would prefer (to win) the Champions League. I lost two finals and something remains,” said the 34-year-old, who scored a crucial if controversial goal in Spurs’ dramatic quarter-final victory against Manchester City, in quotes reported by Calciomercato.
“Losing the final is very bad, it’s the second time it happened to me.”
Napoli have never got further than the round of 16 in Europe’s premiere club competition so the prospect of Llorente lifting ‘old big ears’ in Partenopei blue certainly feels like something of a pipe dream.
But in Carlo Ancelotti, Napoli have a manager who knows what it takes to succeed on the biggest of stages. Ancelotti won the Champions League twice with AC Milan before making Real Madrid’s La Decima dreams come true in 2014.
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