Italy’s southern city of Naples erupted in frenzied celebration on Thursday night after football club Napoli won the national championship for the first time since Diego Maradona led the squad to victory in 1990.
In streets festooned with blue-and-white streamers, players’ pictures and banners declaring “Napoli champions of Italy”, Neapolitans rejoiced at the long-awaited comeback of a club that had collapsed financially — and in morale — after Maradona’s 1991 departure, amid allegations against him of drug use and Mafia associations.
“After 33 years, to win the Scudetto [the Serie A league championship] is a form of social redemption,” said Bruno Alcide, whose Al Nilo coffee bar has a shrine to Maradona — with several of the now deceased player’s hairs preserved as a relic. “It’s a marvellous sensation, not easy to explain.”
