Let’s go out to celebrate Diego dear, Naples loves you…

Faced with the final landscape of madness, his name ceased to be a name; now it is an abysmal symbol of haughtiness Neapolitan.

The images that we saw from before the consecration in Udine – and we will continue to see after the official festivities after the match against Fiorentina – are moving. And in my case they are not referring to the brilliant team that comfortably won the third Scudetto. The balm of recognition of Diego reaches my soul. And I imaginarily evoke the two founding milestones of this story. Especially that first time… How nice back then. And how much more beautiful to recognize it now, 36 years later.

By the way, I’m not talking about football; rather, I ponder the gratitude and recognition of a people to a player who awakened their self-esteem and why not, their identity. Before Diego, the children of that prodigious town emigrated in search of work in the large factories of northern Italy. And many, for fear of being discriminated against, hid their southern dialect. Until an Argentine archangel appeared who supported the public discourse of social vindication with the magic of his game.. And to the extent that Napoli grew as the protagonist of Serie A, Diego challenged with more daring and conviction the arrogance of that cultured and powerful north.

I would have loved Diego not to leave his body on this earth so that he could see, feel and be moved by the tributes of a grateful crowd. A people like the Neapolitans who do not replace their gods; rather, it adds them. For which it is not necessary to be generational; It is enough to measure the achievements that will identify them with eternity. It’s just about being grateful and loyal to memory.

Diego evoked that first “scudetto” with the emphasis of his incomparable emotion. We were in Havana and 13 years had passed since that moment. Maradona was recovering in La Pradera –rehabilitation complex– after suffering a health collapse in Punta del Este at the end of 1999. It was then that I asked him to tell me for his biography how he remembered that historic episode. And among other things he told me:

— Winning the first scudetto for Napoli in sixty years was, for me, an incomparable victory. Different from any other, even the ’86 world title with the National Team.

— We did it to Napoli, from below, something very laborious. I would have liked everyone to see how we celebrate it, we celebrate it more than any other team, much more! He was a scudetto of the whole city. And people were learning that there was no need to be afraid, that the one with the most money did not win, but the one who fought the most, the one who sought the most… For those people, I was the captain of the ship, I was the flag.

— Life in Naples, meanwhile, was incredible. I couldn’t even go out to the corner, because… they loved me too much. And when the Neapolitans love you, they love you! I love you piú che ai mieifigli!, they told me. I love you more than my children! I couldn’t go buy a pair of shoes, because five minutes later the window was broken and a thousand people were inside the shoe store. Then Claudia would go, she would buy my clothes, everything. And they did respect her: Be careful not to touch Maradona’s wife, otherwise he won’t play on Sunday.

— The fact that I have done wonderfully well in Naples had to do, more than anything, with the fact that I brought them things that they did not have: soccer, if you like, like studs, dribbling and titles, but also, and more than anything , pride… Pride, because of that before nobody wanted to have anything to do with Naples, that they were afraid. I was believing that it was a beautiful gulf and nothing more, but I won them by dint of cues and dribbling, going to the front. That is why today, any Neapolitan can tell you: those teams had not been put together by the leaders; Maradona had armed them.

Everything is true. I know: I was there and part of the note that I opportunely wrote for the magazine The graphic He said:

— “The Neapolitan people are believers but tremendous. And fundamentally, superstitious. The churches have never been so full as in the last three days. But, at the same time, the climate grew little by little. A fatal ray opposed the previous explosion but, gradually, they were released. First some balconies, then some fronts, then some streets” (Just like now, before the match against Udine…).

— “On Saturday, (May 10, 1987) the Neapolitan people had won against tremendousism and everything was dyed with the colors of their squad. What’s more: the pool numbers supported the unanimous idea that you couldn’t fail. On Friday, number 47 came out, which there (in Naples) means “Il scudetto” (The Championship) and on Saturday, number 11 came out, representing God (Maradona, the God of soccer). This cost the capitalists a loss of eleven million dollars.. But it is seen that in Naples everything is possible (…) Without the ghost of fatality and having beaten the habit of not anticipating, the Napoli tifosi did not doubt that they would attend the most glorious day in their history: the day of the scudetto ”.

— It was one of the happiest moments in the family. Overjoyed, in an emotional state of tears and hugs, Claudia and her baby Dalmita (he was 45 days old), Don Diego and Doña Tota, Coco Villafañe and his wife, his brothers Lalo, El Turco, Mary and her husband Gabriel “The Vice” Esposito, they thanked God for being actors of the maximum fullness to which a family, by then united, could aspire. No one in the world could be happier. And those first toasts were with descending and irrepressible tears.

— Before midnight, while the carnival was raging in the streets and in the houses, we arrived at a small town on the outskirts of Naples called Nola. There the celebration would be held with Diego, his family and his friends. everything had been fixed Guillermo Coppola with the owner of the house for a long time before. Bruno Passarelli, correspondent for The graphic In Italy, –exquisite writer and journalist–, Ricardo Alfieri and I would be the only members of the press invited.

— We leave Naples and its endless crazy partying. Through a dark and silent road we entered a quiet town. The calculation on the distance according to time took us a few kilometers away from Diego’s house.

— Our car was the fourth to arrive. The guests and the Maradona family were already inside. Don Diego and Coco Villafañe had advanced about an hour. We parked on a street with no pulse. There was only a huge castle to our right. An apple, almost. And long walls of more than a hundred meters covered with small bricks that could well be Norman in style.

— On top of the structure, in the symmetrical holes in the highest part, three men with shotguns in a shooting position watched our entrance to the castle. They were the custodians of the owner of the house.

– They received us Don Diego y Coco Villafane, the volunteer grills of the celebrationwhile a discreet guard confused among the guests kept their eyes on each one of us.

— When Ricardito Alfieri arrived, they warned him with a smile: “Welcome, dear friend… You see, not photos here. In other words, we will tell him when he will be able to do it. And only to the Maradona family and if possible in any unidentifiable place. Ah, please, no photos, none eh, to Mr. Beppo”. Obviously, Mr. Beppo was the host of such a celebration.

— Don Beppo was sitting at the head of the table. His family surrounded him, children, grandchildren, nephews. And Coppola, surely satisfied with the agreement of having brought him none other than the hero of Napoli.

— While the children ran around and the small orchestra offered tarantellas and songs with some injured tango, Don Beppo toasted with other “Don Beppos” of the region for such a demonstration of power. The whole town was in the streets, the whole city was experiencing its most fantastic convulsion and Don Beppo had in his castle the captain of the team, the best player in the world, whom he had given the first Scudetto to the South and whom he protected and would have to protect while living in Italy because Don Beppo was none other than the most “illustrious” Camorra capo of Naples. And as such he had “regional” agreements with the Sicilian Mafia and the Calabrian ‘Ndrangheta.

— The agreement of Guillermo Coppola was sealed: he took Diego and he already “had protection”. At the moment of cutting the giant cake of almost one meter with the colors of Napoli and the image of Diego turned into a funny decoration, Don Beppo went to the table, took the knife and penetrated the dough. In the middle of the revelry, Diego went up to the table and invited the boss to accompany him to dance. We all dance. And when Alfieri wanted to immortalize such a pleasant moment with a photo, two giants fell on him: “The photo on the master is not possible sir, please…”. In other words, Don Beppo, as we had been told, could not be photographed even with Diego.

I still hear Maradona’s voice evoking the second title, the one achieved in the 89-90 season. Among many things, Maradona told me:

— The truth is that when everyone thought that our first scudetto had been a miracle, something that would never be repeated, we were there, at the gates of the second.

— The season that had started in the worst way, with the drug addict and rowdy, which was me, on the brink of the abyss, ended with the title… I had never been and was never physically better, never. I was flying.

— We had to play the last game against Lazio, but everything had already been said. I remember that the Italian journalists confronted me in Soccavo, at the end of the last training session, and they asked me if we would not have suffered less if I had not had all the problems at the beginning of the season, if I did not regret anything. As an answer, I got in the best Italian: “I like to win like this”. I like to win like this. On April 29 (1990), with my teammates from the Argentine National Team already landed in Italy to face the final stretch towards the World Cup, we played Lazio, the last game. A formality, old man, a formality. Baroni’s header goal and to collect, to collect again. This title, this new joy, is for my old man. As soon as the game was over, I spoke to him on the phone and we both cried a lot… A lot… He told me that he was happy for me and for those who are very close to me.

Today we are full of voices and colors. Today that we shed the unexpected tears of his cruel goodbye, the Georgian’s Napoli Khvicha Kvaratskhelia and from the Nigerian Victor Osimhen, they will give the third Olympic round at home. It will be a riotous rhapsody of happiness and pride. The stage where such a thing will occur is called Diego Armando Maradona. The name that will sound strident in the dear ears of a people that does not forget its heroes…

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