Patrick de Napoli

Patrick de Napoli (born 17 November 1975) is a footballer from Switzerland who is also of Italian descent.

He primarily plays as a forward but can also play as an attacking midfielder and has played for a variety of clubs in Switzerland and Germany as well as the Switzerland national football team.

De Napoli last played for SC Menzingen of the Swiss 3.

He played youth football for FC Baar until 1991, when he joined Grasshoppers.

He has represented Switzerland at under-19, under-21 and senior levels, playing international football between 1992 and 1999.

Patrick began his senior career with Grasshopper Club Zürich in the Swiss Super League in the 1991–92 season, making his debut in a 2–1 win over FC Servette on 1 March 1992 at the age of sixteen.

Grasshoppers finished in third place in the league that season.

In the 1992–93 season, de Napoli only made two league appearances as Grasshoppers finished ninth in the regular season and were sucked into a promotion-relegation group.

The club also reached the final of the Swiss Cup, but were beaten 4–1 by FC Lugano.

1993–94 proved to be more successful for both de Napoli and Grasshoppers as the club finished second in the Swiss Super League, just one point behind winners Servette FC, with de Napoli making seven league appearances.

Grasshoppers again reached the final of the Swiss Cup and this time defeated FC Schaffhausen 4–0.

De Napoli improved again in 1994–1995, making thirteen appearances and scoring one goal, the first of his senior career.

Grasshoppers came close to doing a league and cup double, winning the Swiss Super League and reaching the cup final for the third consecutive tournament.

However, they were beaten 4–2 by FC Sion.

1995–96 saw Patrick make nineteen appearances in his last season with Grasshopper Club, scoring three times.

Grasshoppers again won the league title but were eliminated in the early rounds of the cup.

Patrick played in UEFA Champions League games against Ferencvárosi TC, Real Madrid (twice) and AFC Ajax, coming on as a substitute in all four matches.

Midway through the 1995–96 season, de Napoli left Grasshoppers to join FC Winterthur of the Nationalliga B, the Swiss second division.

Ironically, his last season with the club proved to be the one in which he made the most appearances and scored the most goals in his five-year spell with Grasshoppers.

Joining FC Winterthur midway through the season, de Napoli found himself in a relegation group in the bottom half of Nationalliga B.

De Napoli helped steer his new club to safety, as they topped the relegation group with Patrick scoring five times in thirteen games and Winterthur losing just two of their fourteen matches.

Despite becoming an important part of Winterthur's team in such a short period of time, de Napoli moved on again at the end of the 1995–96 season, this time joining FC Aarau, who had just finished fourth in the Nationalliga A, thereby qualifying for the 1996-97 UEFA Cup.

Aarau finished fifth in the 1996–97 Nationalliga A, with de Napoli missing just one of their thirty-six games and weighing in with thirteen goals, a career best.

This goal haul included eight in the first twenty-two games, making him the league's joint-seventh top-scorer for the Qualifying Phase and indeed the seventh top-scorer of the overall season.

He also featured for Aarau in the UEFA Cup, playing in both legs of the 7–0 aggregate loss to Brøndby IF of Denmark in September 1996.

Aarau improved on their league position in 1997–98, finishing fourth, but de Napoli had a less successful season.

He still managed seven goals in thirty-three games, but could not match the impressive strike rate of the previous campaign.

1997–98 would be de Napoli's last season for FC Aarau, as he departed the club to join FC Zürich, who had finished sixth in Nationalliga A in 1997–98.

De Napoli's choice to move to FC Zürich ahead of the 1998–99 Nationalliga A proved to be successful.

Zürich finished in fourth place while Aarau were sucked into a relegation battle.

The striker also experienced the best strike rate of his career, scoring thirteen times in just twenty-eight games.

As a result, he was the league's joint-second top-scorer, tied with Zürich teammate Shaun Bartlett.

Despite this success, Patrick left the club at the end of the season to rejoin Grasshopper Club Zürich.

In what was becoming a familiar pattern in de Napoli's career, he only stayed at Grasshoppers for a year before moving on again.

1999–2000 saw Grasshoppers finish fourth with de Napoli scoring once in eleven games.

He left the club midway through the season to join the first foreign club of his career, German 1999–2000 2. Fußball-Bundesliga strugglers Karlsruher SC, who were then managed by future Germany national team boss Joachim Löw.

De Napoli scored seven times for the under-19 side and six times for the under-21s, but he failed to find the net in his four senior appearances, which included FIFA World Cup and UEFA Euro 2000 qualifiers.

De Napoli has said he has been playing football from the age of six.

Liga in April 2012, having also played in the top division for clubs such as Grasshopper Club Zürich, Karlsruher SC and BSC Young Boys and been player–manager of FC Baar.

De Napoli has made over four hundred league appearances and scored over one hundred league goals, with almost half of these tallies coming from two spells at FC Aarau.