Napoli keeps marching towards a title they have been waiting for thirty-three years, since Diego Armando Maradona’s time.
Today, Maradona is the name of the stadium, the Neapolitans have sanctified him on their own, Diego Armando Maradona is simply the new San Paolo.
San Diego’s presence
And San Diego can be found in the altars at the crossroads, alongside St Gennaro or St Anna.
I was wrong: not just a saint. Diego Armando Maradona is, in Naples, the God.
And whoever walks the endless streets of the Quartieri Spagnoli understands it immediately. Even the blind know it, for Maradona’s name is not only seen everywhere, but also heard, like an incantation, like a prayer.
Let’s put it this way: Maradona is a presence. Neapolitans are convinced that the spirit of Diego has descended upon Kvara’s feet. And anyone who saw the goal against Sassuolo has reasons to raise an eyebrow. Kvara scored in pure Maradonian style.
By the way, if you go to Naples now and you want a souvenir, most are of Maradona. Only after that come Kvara and Osimhen. They sell masks like Osimhen’s even for two-year-olds. But the first is still Diego. His epigones are loved, but the trailblazers remain unmatched.
We went to Naples to take the pulse of the city in the upcoming title year. We met a black sheep, a Neapolitan who wasn’t keen on football, but even he (auguri, Luigi!) knew what Naples would be like in May, when the title comes near Vesuvius: the earth will shake with joy and the dead will be happy in the city’s great cemeteries.
The bettor sees more than the non-bettor. And those who don’t bet are aware that Napoli have moved six wins clear of the next-placed team, a safe distance with fifteen games to go before the Everest of Happiness, but the Neapolitans have suffered too much to have any certainty other than that Maradona is helping them from heaven. And here their analysis stops.
But those who bet understand that the winning possibilities Napoli offers are multiple. For example: Osimhen has been scoring for more than a month match after match, and Kvara has a goal every two matches.
Opportunities
A bettor translates like this: at least two goalscorers and at least two goals for Napoli and the odds go up, up, up.
In addition, the Neapolitans’ chasers, from Inter to AC Milan, are playing with a limp. Atalanta and Roma don’t have the strength to challenge for the title even if Napoli remain without Kvara and Osimhen and Spalletti.
AC Milan is also a wealth of opportunities. Without a goalkeeper (Tatarusanu in place of the injured Maignan offers no security, on the contrary he becomes, as the punters say, a breadcrumb), without the winning and decisive spirit instilled by Ibra last season, with Leao lost in the tunnel of uncertainty, AC Milan are struggling to catch a Champions League place. Victory at Monza, with Berlusconi’s new toy, was predictable but lacklustre.
Each team has a biorhythm. Bettors know that there are times when great teams don’t get anything – you just must see it coming and understand when it ends.
Inter Milan is the only one that could compete with Napoli, but it’s only a theoretical option (they were tormented for seventy minutes by Udinese!). And when they do win, Inter do so with great difficulty. Napoli, therefore: and, after decades of shadows, the sky is now always blue, as in an immortal song by Rino Gaetano.
Rino, the Calabrian, died aged thirty in a road accident in 1981. Ma il cielo è sempre più blu…
