A club once trapped by the memory of Diego Maradona now feels inspired by it, and sat atop Serie A going into the New Year in the ground that bears his name. Can Napoli’s new order create their own legend by winning a first scudetto since 1990?
Words Daniele Verri
NAPOLI
For Napoli fans, 2022 brought yet another summer of regret. Sealing their Champions League return represented a good campaign but, once again, ‘good’ wasn’t enough. From August to October 2021, the Partenopei had shown glimpses of heights often promised, but not achieved, since Diego Maradona’s epoch in the late 1980s.
The Naples air carried that bittersweet taste of summer 2018, when one of the city’s most beautiful teams somehow emerged empty-handed from a record-breaking 91-point season. With four games remaining, Napoli were within a single point of Juventus, after Kalidou Koulibaly’s last-minute winner to sink the Old Lady. Given their form and favourable schedule, Napoli were primed to overtake them. A week later, Juventus rallied from 2-1 down with three minutes left at Inter to win 3-2. The following day, Napoli suffered an emotional collapse at Fiorentina, Koulibaly’s sixth-minute red card triggering a 3-0 defeat and four-point deficit. The dream died again.
Four years later, Luciano Spalletti’s team made a flying start just as Maurizio Sarri’s had done: opening with eight wins in a row, they topped Serie A at the start of December 2021. Then came three consecutive home defeats to Atalanta, Empoli and Spezia. They responded after Christmas to stay in the title race until April but, going into the final turn, they had lost too much ground on Milan and Inter and finished seven points off top spot.
The Napoli teams of 2017-18 and 2021-22 both played some spectacular football, yet neither could clinch the title. A scudetto was just beyond the club’s grasp. It’s a common lament in Italy’s third city.
“Although we led the table halfway through the 2017-18 season, and were six points clear of Juve at one point, most supporters never thought we could really win in the end,” says Gabriele Di Criscio, lawyer, lifelong fan and owner of a Curva A season ticket since 2006. “We felt we’d lose the decisive games. I went to 14 or 15 away games that year, on top of every home match, and the team seemed to be waiting for the right moment to stumble. Every Napoli fan knows they are condemned to fall at the most important moment.”
This cultural heritage has damned club and city to an inferiority complex against rivals in the north of Italy. “We still feel it,” continues Gabriele,
