Scott McTominay will need to study Italian a while longer before he can understand all the lovely things being written about him in the nation’s newspapers, but if he were to thumb through the sports pages from the past few days he might pick out one familiar word. Journalists scrambling to define the Scotsman have referred to him repeatedly as Antonio Conte’s “Jolly”.
These are not remarks on the player’s outlook, though they could be. “My biggest dream as a person is to be happy,” said McTominay in an interview for Napoli’s in-house channels last month. “Happiness is the best thing in life, and that is the only thing I concentrate on: try to be happy, with my family, my friends, my girlfriend … when you have a smile on your face you play better at football as well.”
