Former Swansea City star Jonathan de Guzman has opened up on the bizarre way he was treated at Serie A side Napoli.
The Dutchman left the Liberty after two successful loan seasons in SA1. At the end of his spell in South Wales he headed to the 2014 World Cup in Brazil with the Netherlands, before transferring permanently to the side managed by Rafa Benitez, then Maurizio Sarri.
In a twist of fate de Guzman, who now plays for German side Eintracht Frankfurt, will face Sarri's Chelsea in the second leg of the Europa League semi-final this week.
But it was in Naples where Canadian-born de Guzman's problems started. He picked up a hernia helping Napoli to the semi-finals of the Europa League.
Speaking to The Times , he said: "The [club] doctors and the physios didn’t see that I had that problem."
But he did. His injury remained undiagnosed and he was put through pre-season training ahead of the 2016-17 campaign.
He says he felt "60 per cent" - but the medical team declared him fit.
"They thought I was lying," he added. "They didn’t believe me. No one wanted to listen."
Sarri and technical director Cristiano Giuntoli tried to move him on that summer, with Premier League sides Sunderland and Bournemouth tracking him.
“I was like: 'listen, I can’t go anywhere with this problem. If I go to a team, I want to be fit'," he said.
That's when things got heated.
In an interview with Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant last year, de Guzman told of an intense altercation with Giuntoli in the Napoli dressing room. “He said, 'Hey, piece of ****, come here’. We went to the players’ lounge. He said, ‘You promised you would leave.’ Then he suddenly punched me in the face."
The 31-year-old was then banished from the first-team squad. "It was the worst situation of my career. I felt like no one wanted to help me. I was isolated," he added.
Self-doubt crept in, but a second opinion from a specialist who he sought out diagnosed the hernia in 10 minutes. Finally, de Guzman managed to secure a loan move to Capri where he managed to have an operation to cure his ailment.
Another loan stint followed, this time at Chievo, before his Napoli nightmare finally ended with a transfer to the Bundesliga in July 2017.
De Guzman's bizarre treatment in Italy is at odds with his time spent in South Wales, upon which he recalls fond memories.
A deadball specialist, de Guzman was the perfect player for Michael Laudrup's Swansea side at the time, who were neat in possession and produced some high-quality football.
“The first year was insane,” he remembers. “I think a lot of things just worked for us that season, especially with Michu — everything he touched was golden.
"From the first game, when we played QPR, we won 5-0, we had a great start, and we continued, and winning the Capital One Cup just put the cherry on top of that season.”
De Guzman was at the centre of controversy during the final at Wembley, when he argued with Nathan Dyer over who should take a penalty against Bradford.
Dyer was on a hat-trick, but de Guzman took the spot-kick anyway.
Now, though, de Guzman just wants to focus on his career. "The game is my medicine," he adds. "Being here, being fit and playing, it’s probably the best thing that’s happened to me."
