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Or you could tune into the endless interviews of film director Paolo Sorrentino, who in an interview to the Esquire credits Maradona for saving his life. Once he sneaked out to watch Maradona only to return home and see his dead parents, poisoned in their bed by carbon monoxide fumes from a faulty heater. Or if you have access to any footage or literature on Maradona. In a sense he was built in the image of the city, just as the city was built in Maradona’s image. Anarchic and wondrous, tragic and triumphant, passionate and volatile, as if Naples transformed to Maradona or Maradona transformed into Naples. At a memorial in Naples, the mayor of the city Luigi De Magistris said as much: “It was a visceral love. Maradona was Naples.”
Soccer Football – Serie A – Napoli Serie A Title Celebration – Naples, Italy – May 5, 2023 A Napoli fan waves a flag, the day after after Napoli won their first Serie A title for 33 years REUTERS/Guglielmo Mangiapane
Maradona looms both invisibly and visibly in the fiction, films, painting and photographs of the city. There is a mural of him in the arms of San Gennaro himself.
It’s difficult to think of a foreign footballer who has blended into the popular culture of a different country. Not even his great successor Lionel Messi.They even tweaked the law for Maradona—the diktat is that any monument shall be named or built ten years after the death of the person. But Napoli renamed Stadio San Paolo to Diego Maradona Stadium a week after his death.
But it did not take death for them to remember Maradona. The sight of giant flags with the face of Maradona has been a ubiquitous sight for the best part of the last three decades. A recent mural shows him congratulating the recent batch of winners—Maradona smiling that half-naughty, half-cryptic smile and holding the trophy alongside Victor Osimhen and Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, two of the chief architects of the Napoli’s first scudetto in the After Diego (AD as they abbreviate) era.
The superstitious locals did not believe this was their year. This was AD (After Diego) 33, that is 17 years to 50. Anything that has to do with 17 is considered inauspicious. They don’t have seat No 17, or jersey No 17. Most fans stay home for the 17th game. There are other superstitions too—like some shopkeepers refusing to sell scarves and flags, like the club urging Osimhen to wear the protective mask again. Apparently, both Napoli and Nigeria started losing games after he stopped wearing it. He began to wrap the mask over his pace, and Napoli began to win again and marched to their third ever title.
Celebrate this weekend like a true Champion! 💪🇮🇹
Order your Coca-Cola & pizza and celebrate winning the Scudetto! 🥤🍕#fridayfeeling #cocacola #realmagic @CocaColaIT pic.twitter.com/atLV61U1c2— Official SSC Napoli (@sscnapoli) May 5, 2023
But this is no miracle or fairy-tale though. They did not triumph by coincidence or fortune, but rather through planning, diligence and hard work. Even the Maradona-inspired scudetti was not purely an underdog story. They had other quality players like Careca and Bruno Giordano too. Likewise, this has been coming. In the last 12 years, they have finished in the top four 11 times, of which four times they came second. Over the years, Napoli had churned some fine footballers, from Edinson Cavani. This year, even if you account for the defections of defensive rock Kalidou Koulibaly, talisman Lorenzo Insigne and all-time leading goal-scorer Dries Mertens, they possessed a deep squad of energetic and technical players that Luciano Spalletti harnessed into an attractive ruthless group.
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Soccer Football – Serie A – Napoli Serie A Title Celebration – Naples, Italy – May 5, 2023 Napoli fans await the arrival of the team at the Centro Sportivo Castel Volturno, the day after after Napoli won their first Serie A title for 33 years REUTERS/Ciro De Luca
Still the underdog story reverberates, not just because Napoli has won just three league titles (Juventus have 13 while Milan and Inter have 19 apiece) but because of the friction between southern and northern Italy. Napoli and Roma are Southerners while Juventus, AC Milan and Inter are Northerners. The Neapolitan are frequently subjected to territorial slurs, ranging from chants about the city being destroyed by volcanic emission from the Vesuvius to the people being dirty and carrying cholera. Noted historian Nicholas Doumanis has argued that the northern and southern halves of Italy are like two different countries, with their own social, cultural and economic situations. Northern regionalist parties such as Lega Nord have rallied for secession from the south altogether. For Naples, the Maradona era was akin to a liberation. The political undertones are not as virulent as it was in the Maradona days, but still the latest league victory will acquire political hues too.
The celebrations, spearheaded by the fabled and sometimes feared Ultra groups, have been feverish. The internet is bursting at the seams with videos and pictures from Naples of fans partying, dancing on rooftops, crackers snaking into the skies, and buildings illuminating in sky-blue shades of the club jersey. It would be akin to what John Foot wrote in Calcio about Napoli’s celebration in 1987. “During the celebrations, Napoli fans displayed all the classic traits of what has become known as the Neapolitan ‘character’: irony, parody and a sense of the macabre, obscenity and blasphemy.”
Soccer Football – Serie A – Napoli Serie A Title Celebration – Naples, Italy – May 5, 2023 Napoli fans await the arrival of the team at the Centro Sportivo Castel Volturno, the day after after Napoli won their first Serie A title for 33 years REUTERS/Ciro De Luca
Some of the Ultra groups like CUCB (Commando Ultras Curva B), Ultras Napoli, Fedayn, Ultra Girls and Ladies Napoli have a cult following of their own. Fights are common, but they have stood with the club even during their darkest days, when they languished in Serie C. In the mid-aughts, Serie B matches involving Napoli registered more attendance than the top division. An ultra group even stole Spalletti’s Fiat Panda at the start of the season. He got a note outside his home that it would be returned if he left the club. The coach made light of the incident. “If my Pino Daniele CDs are gone I won’t be taking them back,” he joked.
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Celebrations can turn violent and ugly too. Mafia groups seize on this mayhem to settle scores. Last Thursday, the 26-year-old son of an alleged mafia boss was shot dead during the celebrations. Hundreds were reportedly taken to hospital, including people with hand and arm injuries from fireworks, knife wounds and injuries from numerous brawls. This adds to the mystique of Naples, the city of Blood Miracle and Maradona, of spirituality and paganism, of mafiosi and superstitions. And just as they wait for San Gennaro’s blood to liquefy, they wait for the gleaming trophy to land in Naples on the last day of the league.
