Leeds United took Elia Caprile from Chievo Verona in the winter 2020 market and offered him a contract until 2023.
The goalkeeper trained with the Whites’ first team and was included in matchday squads on a handful of occasions when Marcelo Bielsa was in charge at Elland Road.
However, the 20-year-old was never given an opportunity to represent the English club’s senior team. In order to allow the Italian to continue his development, Leeds United let him join Serie C side Pro Patria on a loan deal last summer.
Caprile has made 39 appearances in all competitions this season, where he conceded 46 goals and kept 13 clean sheets. On May 3rd, the custodian’s agent, Graziano Battistini, said he will hold talks with the Whites over his client’s future in the coming weeks.
“I wanted to show everyone that I am capable of playing as a professional. He always told me what he thought. Straightforward and direct like me. It oscillates between ‘Elijah, you were great today’ and ‘what have you done?’,” he said.
“As a young man he played at amateur levels as a defender, but when I was little, he trained me for a few years. My first goalkeeper coach was Steno, a seventy-year-old gentleman. He passed away during the lockdown when I was in England. After him there was my father.
“We studied training, videos, curiosities. He’s from Naples, I owe him everything, in fact my dream is to play at least one match for the Azzurri at ‘Diego Maradona’ with the whole family watching me.”
It is not the first time Caprile has publicly talked about his dream of playing for Napoli. Last month, he also expressed his desire to play for the Serie A side in the future.
