Exequiel Zeballos' Move from Napoli to Monza in Serie A
Exequiel Zeballos stepped into Milan airport with the look of a player who knows his career has just taken a sharp turn off the expected path.
A few weeks ago, he was on the brink of joining Napoli. Personal terms were in place, the project was clear, the move felt inevitable. Then Boca Juniors slammed the door. The Argentine club turned down an offer worth around €10m plus add-ons, and what seemed a straight road to the south of Italy suddenly twisted.
Deadline day brought the plot twist. With his contract in Buenos Aires ticking down towards its December 31 expiry, Zeballos didn’t board a flight to Naples. He came to Monza instead.
The Serie A minnows have completed a deal believed to be worth around €4m for 60 per cent of his rights, with Boca Juniors holding on to the remaining 40 per cent of any future sale. For a club of Monza’s size, that structure speaks loudly: this is a bet on upside, on resale, on a player they think can explode in Europe.
Zeballos, 24, touched down in Italy and spoke briefly to reporters in Milan.
"It all happened so fast, I will speak with coach Ivan Juric today," he said, still processing the speed of the move. One conversation now matters more than any that came before: convincing Juric he can be a weapon in this Monza side.
His motivation for choosing Italy ran deeper than tactics or salary.
"I wanted to come to Italy because my father's idol is Maradona," he admitted. For an Argentine forward leaving Boca Juniors, the Maradona thread is impossible to ignore. Napoli may have slipped away, but the country where Diego became a god still called to him.
The decision wasn’t taken in isolation. Inside the Boca dressing room, Zeballos leaned on one of the few teammates who truly understands Serie A from the inside: Leandro Paredes, the former Roma and Juventus midfielder.
"It's true, Paredes gave me a lot of advice, especially when we were talking about Napoli," Zeballos revealed. The move to the south never materialised, yet the conversations, the insight into Italian football, clearly nudged him toward this leap.
On the pitch, Monza are getting a wide attacker who can operate on either flank, comfortable on the left or right and willing to drive at defenders. Across 140 competitive matches for Boca Juniors, Zeballos produced 16 goals and 16 assists – not gaudy numbers, but a solid platform for a player still entering his prime years.
Now the context changes. Smaller club, same unforgiving league. No Maradona mural on the way to the stadium, no Champions League anthem in the short term. Just a tight, ambitious project in Monza and a coach in Juric who demands intensity and end product from his wide players.
Napoli was the move that didn’t happen. Monza is the one that did. How long before that 40 per cent Boca kept starts to look like a very smart piece of business?
