Former Napoli and Juventus defender Fabio Cannavaro says he would whistle his former Real Madrid teammate Gonzalo Higuain as an "act of love" if he were at Stadio San Paolo on Wednesday night.
Higuain received a frosty reception from Napoli fans on Sunday evening on his first return since moving to their arch-rivals Juve in the summer and he is likely to receive the same treatment when he returns on Wednesday night for a Coppa Italia semifinal.
On whether he would do the same, Naples-born Cannavaro, who joined Juve nearly a decade after his Napoli exit, told La Stampa: "Of course I would.
"Whistling is a form of derision and the fact that the Napoli fans whistled him so much is because he left behind a lot of love -- if they had showed indifference, then it would have hurt him far more. Contesting him is an act of love.
"The Napoli fans don't like the way he just sneaked out in the dark of night, without saying goodbye to his teammates and the coach. From one day to the next, in fact, he was gone. It was traumatic."
Higuain made the move when Juve activated the €90 million release clause in his contract, and Cannavaro says Napoli president Aurelio De Laurentiis benefited from the deal.
"Everybody is free to do whatever they want and at the end of the day, Juventus only bought him because somebody had put that clause in his contract," Cannavaro said. "And that somebody has made a lot of money."
Higuain is not alone in making the move from Naples to Turin. Fabio Quagliarella made the same switch several years before him, although he has now been forgiven by Napoli fans after details of how he was forced out of Naples emerged.
Previously, Ciro Ferrara, Jose Altafini and Dino Zoff also earned the wrath of Napoli fans by joining Juve and Emanuele Giaccherini could have followed the same path in January, according to his agent.
"Yes, there was contact in January," Furio Valcareggi told tuttojuve.com. "It's absolutely true, but Napoli refused to let him go."
A return to Juve for Giaccherini may not have sparked so much outrage, since he has made just one start in Serie A since joining the Azzurri in the summer, but Valcareggi hopes he is given a chance to endear himself to the Napoli fans starting with Wednesday's game.
"I really hope he plays on Wednesday," he said. "The lad's in great shape. We know what kind of a team Napoli have and we accepted, sportingly and with kindness, the decisions that the coach has made."