In the first minutes which followed the announcement of the death of Diego Armando Maradona by the Argentinian media, a little after 5 p.m., Wednesday, November 25, a heavy and unusual silence, fell on Naples. Then, slowly, despite the very worrying health situation and the confinement, which in theory prohibits travel, the noise returned, and thousands of people took to the streets, to celebrate the memory of the Argentine footballer, including the past seven years. in the city, from 1984 to 1991, left a monumental mark.
In seven seasons spent at the foot of Vesuvius, the Argentina international brought the club the only two league titles (1987 and 1990) in its history, putting an end to the overwhelming domination of Serie A by clubs in the north of the country. , and more particularly Juventus Turin of Giovanni Agnelli and AC Milan of Silvio Berlusconi.
Embodiment of the city
Where to go ? The answer is not straightforward. The historic home of the Argentinian footballer, in the upscale Posillipo district, is a little out of the way. Soccavo’s “campo Paradiso”, where Napoli then trained, is nothing more than a wasteland strewn with garbage, which nobody knows exactly who it belongs to. As for “his” restaurant, La Sacrestia, it closed a few years ago to make way for a luxury villa.
The crowds therefore concentrated on the area surrounding the large murals dedicated to him. In San Giovanni a Teduccio, in the east of the city, at the foot of his gigantic portrait, hundreds of people gathered amid firecrackers and horn concerts, singing in Neapolitan tunes to the glory of this son of Buenos Aires became upon his arrival, in the summer of 1984, the most perfect incarnation of the city. In the alleys of the Spanish Quarters, where the images of Maradona are everywhere, several spontaneous gatherings were also held. We put on the edge of a balcony a portrait of the player, a Napoli jersey flocked with the number 10 or an Argentinian flag …
But it is finally around the San Paolo stadium, illuminated all evening in tribute to the greatest player in the history of Napoli, that the crowds will be the densest. In the evening, the mayor of the city, Luigi De Magistris, launched the idea of ”renaming” the Napoli stadium with the name of Maradona. Thursday evening, at 9 p.m., Napoli will host the Croats from Rijeka behind closed doors, for the fourth day of the group stage of the Europa League. A quarter of an hour before, the Neapolitans were invited to put a candle at their window. Then, after the minute’s silence, the former club captain Marek Hamsik, distant heir of Maradona, invited all the inhabitants to dedicate to him “The biggest applause in the history of the city”.
