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league champions with Maradona in the record

NaplesThe day has come. After an impeccable season, Napoli have won the Scudetto away from home. The draw with Udinese (1-1) catapulted the azure as winners of the Italian league. The numbers are clear: five days from the end of the championship and with a 16-point lead over second place -Lazio-, Naples no longer has a rival. The Diego Armando Maradona is a pressure cooker, more than 55,000 fans have gathered here to watch the city team win through the screens.

Spirits had fallen in the stadium. But not hope. “Of course we knew it would be today. We believe in this. Otherwise, we would have already left the field. And we’re here”, says Liano, with tears in his eyes, from Curve A. Osimehn’s goal has revived the fans, who were holding their breath since Udinese’s first goal. Spalletti’s team could not fail again. And he hasn’t.

Neapolitans are used to waiting. The city is nostalgic and time passes more slowly here than in the rest of the world. It’s been 33 very long springs to see and touch the third league title. The first two, in 1987 and 1990, won with Maradona on the pitch. For many fans it’s the first championship they’ve seen the team they support win: “Our grandparents and our parents told us about it, but I’m 27 years old and I’ve never been able to experience it. Now we can understand the emotion that they told us at home,” says Giovanni, a loyal member of Curva A who has hardly missed a league game.

Now the party begins. Neapolitans are ready, in fact, they always have been. The horns don’t stop, chants are repeated and fireworks explode in every neighborhood. The latter, in Naples, are used for two reasons: to warn that drugs have arrived at the port or to celebrate that a member of the mafia has been released from prison. Today there is another reason: to let everyone know that dreams do come true.

The streets are full and everything indicates that not everyone will go to work this Friday. In fact, in April 90, the celebration in the city lasted a week, the rascal did not go to school, businesses closed and long tables were organized in the streets where all the residents ate together . No one knows how long it will last this time, but Naples is an exaggeration, always.

At the heart of Quartieri Spagnoli is the Neapolitan fountain: Largo Maradona. A little square of 120 square meters where there is the sanctuary of the Golden Boy. Today they all make pilgrimages to thank him for what he has done: “Without him nothing would have been possible. Dio Diego has helped us from heaven.” There is no Naples without Maradona or Maradona without Naples: Maradona Saint. Maradona God. Maradona always. Maradona everywhere: “We adore him. He is our pagan god. Always Dieguito,” says Alessandro, who swears that these days he will bring him flowers again. Why is Maradona’s shadow so present in the city more than 30 years later? Because for the Neapolitans who loves do not forget (who loves does not forget).

‘Dio’ Diego, always in the record

In Naples, football is a religion, the players are gods who receive offerings and the city is paralyzed with each victory. now Dio Diego will have to share the spotlight with the new idols of the city: Osimhen, Kvaratskhelia, Meret, Di Lorenzo or the coach himself, Luciano Spalletti. The technician is quite a reference for the younger ones, who use his words as a mantra on social networks: “Strong men, strong destinies. Weak men, weak destinies. There is no other way“. (Strong men, strong destinies. Weak men, weak destinies. There is no other way). Today, Naples reaches its destination and settles accounts with the Italy that has left it aside.

In a country that lives at two paces – the north and the south –, Naples carries a feeling of inferiority in almost all areas: the highest unemployment in the country, poverty, the mafia, abandonment by the administrations, the city of trash and crime, the place where nothing works. But the citizens of “the worst most beautiful city in the world” have learned to get bya Neapolitan word meaning get out-se’n. Naples is not a city, it is a universe. For the Parthenopeans, the Scudetto is not a title, it is one vendetta.

History is being written these days in Naples. And all those who fill its streets know it. As it happened 33 years and 5 days ago with Maradona, Neapolitans raise their heads and feel the pride of their land. Today, being Neapolitan is wonderful, because, as a flag hanging from a balcony on Rua Catalana says, The south will rise again (the south will re-emerge).

2023-05-04 20:37:38
#league #champions #Maradona #record

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