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Spalletti has detailed how Wanda Nara’s explosive comments led to Mauro Icardi losing the Inter Milan armband.
Luciano Spalletti, the former Inter Milan and Napoli boss, has offered unfiltered insight into one of the most controversial chapters of his managerial career.
Spalletti famously stripped Mauro Icardi of the Inter captaincy during his time at the San Siro.
In his newly released autobiography Il Paradiso esiste, ma quanta fatica ("Paradise Exists, But How Much Toil"), Spalletti opened up about the breakdown of trust within the squad, sparked by off-field drama involving Icardi’s wife and agent, Wanda Nara.
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“Mauro Icardi was the captain,” Spalletti wrote as reported by Calciomercato.
“When, that is, I realized that our captain's weakness was called Wanda and that she risked bringing down the whole group.”
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Nara’s public comments questioning the quality of Icardi’s teammates caused shockwaves in the dressing room and, according to Spalletti, threatened to unravel the squad entirely.
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“And I couldn't tolerate that. Mauro was going through a difficult time in football at that time, things weren't going the way he would have liked. He wasn't able to score as much as he usually did. She said that if you wanted Icardi to score more goals, you had to buy players who would help him do it. Having better players, in short, that was the concept. Unbearable. A bombshell. It was one of those statements that couldn't be dismissed with a WhatsApp, a story on Instagram or a like; to put things right you had to talk while looking each other in the eye, the old fashioned way,” Spalletti recalled.
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“The next day I asked the captain, in front of all his teammates, to explain Wanda Nara's words.
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“To justify them in some way. It seemed like the least I could do, as a form of respect for others.
“Mauro replied that it wasn't his wife Wanda who had spoken, but his agent Nara, and that he had done so exclusively in this capacity. It was impossible to manage the situation.”
"I lost Icardi"
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Spalletti, who famously led Napoli to a historic Scudetto in 2023 with Super Eagles star Victor Osimhen as his talisman, ultimately made the painful call to strip Icardi of the captaincy, handing the armband to veteran goalkeeper Samir Handanović.
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“There was no way. I had to tell him two things, take away the captain's armband and give it to Handanovic. ”
“The club's consensus was there, but it was silent,” he noted.
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“In the end, to keep the team together, I lost Icardi, the man and the player."
The fallout was decisive as both Spalletti and Icardi departed the San Siro at the end of the season, with the Argentine striker joining Paris Saint-Germain before settling at Turkish giants Galatasaray in 2022 — where he now shares a dressing room with Osimhen, on loan from Napoli.
Spalletti’s reflections in his autobiography also delve into his turbulent relationship with Napoli president Aurelio De Laurentiis, painting a picture of a coach often forced to make brutal choices in pursuit of unity and silverware.
As the football world absorbs these revelations, it’s clear Spalletti isn’t just lifting the lid — he’s tearing it clean off.
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