Elia Caprile spent over two years at Leeds United and left the club in the summer of 2022, without playing a single game for the Whites’ first-team.
The goalkeeper is now at Napoli and spent the 2024/25 season on loan at Cagliari, where he impressed and helped them avoid relegation.
The 23-year-old has spoken to Cronache di Spogliatoio about his life in Italy and also spoke about his time in England with Leeds United. He particularly reminisced about Marcelo Bielsa’s methods.
“He was the coach of the first team. He knew everything about the club from the U-18s onwards and the goalkeeping coach cut all the goals of the top-5 European leagues for him. You could see something like 200 goals scored a day and he had rented a room inside the sports centre . With him we stayed on the pitch until a drill was perfect, a bit like Conte in Naples: that’s their strength.”
He also spoke about the academy structure at Leeds United, saying that Raphinha once gifted him an Ederson (Manchester City goalkeeper) jersey.
“We had met in the Leeds reserve team. The reserve championship is an U-23 with 5 over-age players, it is often played on Monday so that the first team players who haven’t played can go down. The level for this is really high. Raphinha or Kalvin Phillips were in my team.
“There are about 21 games per season, of which seven are played at the sports centre, another seven in a semi-professional stadium and another seven in the first team stadium. This is to let the boys acclimatise to the crowd and let them experience the atmosphere of the big boys: in Leeds we played games with 10/15 thousand spectators. It’s a format that works.”
Caprile explained he recently spoke to Billy Gilmour and Scott McTominay and compared experiences from in England. McTominay has become something of a superstar since his move to Serie A, so any comment referencing quickly travels around the Italian media.
“We spoke with McTominay and Gilmour about the culture in English football, I asked about life at United and Brighton, we compared my experience at Leeds and then in Italy.
“I tried to get to know English culture when I was in Leeds and I still do today. I’m lucky enough to have a dog, this forces me to go on long walks. And consequently to know the cities I find myself in.”
Caprile has been linked with a move back to England over the last few weeks and his comments indicate he may be tempted to return one day.
While the goalkeeper only played for Leeds United’s U23s’ side, he learnt a lot during his time at the Yorkshire club and it’s something he carries with him today, having spoken multiple times about how formative his period at the club was.
