10 things you need to know about Marek Hamsik

By Mirror Football in Football Spy

Published 12:59 18/03/10

Napoli's Marek Hamsik has been rated as one of Europe's hottest young prospects for a while now, registering on the radars of clubs as illustrious as Barcelona and Manchester United.

Now it's the turn of Manchester City, but Mancini has ruled out a move for Napoli star Hamsik .

Despite the Italian's claims here's the lowdown on Slovakia's hottest property...

1) Marek Hamsik was born 27 July 1987 in Banska Bystrica, a state in the former Czechoslovakia which has since become Slovakia.

2) Hamsik is a creative midfielder who scores goals. He can play as a forward, on the left, or in the centre of midfield. He looks a bit like Robin van Persie might if he put his finger in an electric socket.

3) After playing for a small youth team in his local area, Hamsik signed for Slovakia's most famous side, Slovan Bratislava in 2002. One game and one goal for the first team was enough to convince Brescia to take him to Serie A for a fee of €500,000.

4) Hamsik made his debut for Brescia as a 17 year-old in March 2005. Later that season Brescia were releagated and he continued his footballing education in Serie B for two seasons - scoring 10 goals in 40 games during the 2006-07 campaign.

5) His obvious future potential was recognised by newly promoted Napoli, the former club of a certain Diego Maradona, who sealed Hamsik's return to Serie A for a transfer fee of €5.5m.

6) Hamsik scored on his full debut for Napoli in a 4-0 win against Cesena in the Italian Cup. His first goal in Serie A came against Sampdoria on September 16, 2007.

He ended his first season as Napoli's top scorer with nine goals from 37 games. He repeated the feat in his second season, scoring another nine goals and was crowned Serie A young footballer of the year in 2008 - the first non-Italian to ever win the award. Yet this season he has managed to top both the previous years with a tally of 12 Serie A goals, helping Napoli to an impressive sixth placed finish.

7) Hamsik's hero is the Czech midfielder, Pavel Nedved. In 2007, Hamsek was runner-up in the Slovak footballer of the year awards (behind Liverpool's Martin Skrtel) and was voted best young Slovak footballer.

He repeated these identical successes in 2008, again losing out to Skrtel in his national player of the year awards, but in 2009 he went one better, and claimed the title from the Liverpool defender.

8) Hamsik represented Slovakia at several youth levels before making his full international debut on February 2007 in a 2-2 friendly draw against Poland. He is now established as a key member of the attack of the national team, racking up eight goals in 30 appearances.

9) Managers on both sides of Manchester are known admirers, with United's Alex Ferguson seeing Hamsik as the ideal young player to fill the goal scoring boots of Paul Scholes from midfield. However, Manchester City are now the latest English side to be linked with the Slovakian maestro, despite Mancini's protestations, but will have to open their cheque book to the tune of £25m in order to acquire him.

10) However, Hamsik has signed a new five-year contract with Napoli, which could end any speculation that he will leave at the end of the season, or simply mean City or United have to spend that much more to get him.

See some of his goal scoring skills in action in this video compilation: