Barcelona beware - Kvaradona is back! Napoli's wing wizard Khvicha Kvaratskhelia is weaving his magic again ahead of crunch Champions League clash

Taking off one of the heroes of last season's Scudetto success may have been a ballsy move by Napoli's new coach Francesco Calzona - but it was also the correct call. Kvaratskhelia had contributed absolutely nothing to the game against Barcelona. In 67 minutes of (in)action, he managed zero shots, no key passes and just 36 touches - fewer than Napoli goalkeeper Alex Meret.

He wasn't the only star to be hooked either. Victor Osimhen was replaced just two minutes after scoring the goal that earned Napoli a 1-1 draw. "I keep the players on the field who are doing well, I don’t look at their names," Calzona told Sky Sport Italia afterwards. "Those who do not do well can be removed."

In the case of Osimhen, there were mitigating circumstances. He's had injury issues this season and fatigue has undoubtedly been a factor in the forward's patchy performances, with Nigeria's run to the final of the Africa Cup of Nations having taken a heavy toll on him.

Kvaratskhelia has had no such excuse to fall back on during his unproductive periods - and there have been quite a few. Indeed, while desperately trying to explain Napoli's dramatic dip in form over the past year, outspoken president Aurelio De Laurentiis even publicly pointed out that Kvaratskhelia, the team's "star" last season, didn't score a single goal between March and November of 2023.

However, Kvaratskhelia certainly can't be held responsible for the mess De Laurentiis has made of a glorious opportunity to build a dynasty at the Maradona; if anything, he's paid the price for the president's poor decision-making.

Clearly, there is a direct correlation between Kvaratskhelia's form and that of Napoli. When he plays well, the team usually does too. And there's no denying that he's gone missing on several occasions, particularly in the Champions League, where he's managed just one direct goal involvement. One could even argue that he's not actually been at his best in Europe since the 6-1 rout of Ajax in Amsterdam in October 2022 that made the whole football world sit up and take notice of Luciano Spalletti's side.

However, Kvaratskhelia wasn't the only player to run out of steam towards the tail end of the last season - or struggle since the devastating departure of former coach Spalletti, who fell out with De Laurentiis. Several key men have underwhelmed, including midfielder Stanislav Lobotka and captain Giovanni Di Lorenzo, just two other victims of a general malaise at the Maradona that has already claimed two coaches this season, in Rudi Garcia and Walter Mazzarri.

It also has to be acknowledged that Kvaratskhelia has actually been one of Napoli's better players this term. On average, he's completing more dribbles per game, making more chances and delivering more crosses than 2022-23.

His efficacy has undoubtedly fallen, though. Kvaratskhelia ended last season with 14 assists in all competitions; he has just five this time around, and we're already approaching the middle of March.

However, Kvaratskhelia has looked like his old unstoppable self in recent weeks, showcasing the same kind of devastating dribbling skills that provoked inevitable comparisons with Maradona (given the colour of the shirt he was wearing), but that were actually more evocative of the wing wizardry of George Best.

Four days after the Barca debacle, Kvaratskhelia was subbed off again in a dismal draw with Cagliari, prompting further speculation over his future in Naples, with the Blaugrana, Paris Saint-Germain, Chelsea (inevitably!) and Liverpool among those reportedly interested in the 23-year-old, who is still on the same relatively small €1.5 million-per-season contract he signed when he arrived in Italy from Dinamo Batumi in the summer of 2022 as a relative unknown.

Unsurprisingly, his agent, Mamuka Jugeli, has been only too happy to to contribute to the transfer talk, telling the Gazzetta dello Sport, "We are talking with the club, we will see what will happen. He will leave if another club presents an offer that the management cannot refuse.

"I can’t talk about a specific amount, these are De Laurentiis' assessments. I protect Khvicha’s contract and work. Everything will be clear at the end of May."

Since the second successive subbing in Sardinia, though, he's been exceptional. There was two goals and an assist in a 6-1 rout of Sassuolo, a volleyed strike in the 2-1 victory over Juventus, and another smart finish in last Friday's 1-1 draw with Torino.

Rather than take the credit for Kvaratskhelia's return to form, Calzona has accepted the blame for the attacker's initial inability to get to grips with exactly what he was asking of him.

"I found him to be slightly introverted, but not too much, because after three days he was laughing and joking with everyone," Calzona, the Slovakia coach who has taken over on an interim basis until the end of the season, told Cronache di Spogliatoio. "If he doesn't perform well, he's the first to do self-criticism and I really like this.

"But he has grown from a tactical point of view. At the beginning I made some mistakes with him, because I was asking him too quickly for something he wasn't used to doing. I was asking him to defend differently, positionally, preventively, and not in the build-up, to save energy. They are different concepts and he was so focused on my requests that he partly and temporarily lost sight of his main qualities."

It's fair to say that Kvaratskhelia has now found them again, which is great news for Napoli and their hopes of salvaging this calamitous campaign, but bad news for Barcelona. The Blaugrana saw the worst version of Kvaratskhelia at the Maradona three weeks ago; on Tuesday night, they might just bear witness to the best.