Romelu Lukaku & Alessandro Buongiorno: Napoli's odd couple

Everton's Belgian, Torino's son

Few pairings feel as geographically and emotionally mismatched as these two. Lukaku's name is stitched to Everton's history - a loan spell in 2013–14 that turned into a permanent deal, a 25-goal Premier League season in 2016–17, and a PFA Team of the Year nod before Manchester United came calling. Buongiorno, by contrast, is Torino through and through: born in Turin, a boyhood fan of the club, he rose through its youth ranks, won a Coppa Italia Primavera with the Primavera side, and after loan spells away in Serie B with Carpi and Trapani, returned to become club captain. For a reader who thinks of Lukaku in an Everton shirt and Buongiorno in Torino's maroon, the idea of them lining up together anywhere feels almost like a trick question.

Different roads to the same dressing room

Lukaku's path to Napoli was long and winding. After Everton came Manchester United, then a breakout move to Inter Milan where he won the Serie A title and was named the league's Most Valuable Player, before a club-record return to Chelsea that didn't work out, loans back to Italy with Inter and Roma, and finally a permanent switch to Napoli in 2024. He arrived as Napoli's main striker and was the club's top scorer as they won the 2024–25 Scudetto.

Buongiorno's route was more direct but no less eventful. After establishing himself as a regular starter and captain under Ivan Jurić at Torino, he was sold to Napoli in July 2024 for a reported €35 million plus bonuses, signing a long-term deal. Like Lukaku, he was part of that title-winning campaign, earning a place in Serie A's Team of the Season for 2024–25 alongside his new strike partner up front.

A shared Scudetto, a shared Supercoppa

According to our records, the two were team-mates at Napoli through the 2025–26 season, by which point both already had a Serie A title with the club under their belts from the previous year, plus a Supercoppa Italiana success in 2025–26 itself. It's a tidy footnote to two careers that otherwise ran on separate tracks - one forged in Merseyside and later across Europe's biggest leagues, the other built almost entirely in Turin before a single, decisive move south.

Why it's worth remembering

Neither man needs Napoli to define him. Lukaku's story runs through Anderlecht, West Brom, Everton, Manchester United, Inter, and Chelsea - a career of restless movement and reinvention, capped by Belgium's all-time scoring record. Buongiorno's is the opposite: patience and loyalty, a Torino academy graduate who became his club's captain before taking the biggest step of his career at 25. That contrast is exactly what makes their Napoli overlap worth noting. It wasn't destiny, and it wasn't an obvious fit on paper - just two very different footballing lives crossing, briefly and successfully, under the same Scudetto-winning roof.