Champions, At Last!

Napoli’s long-awaited title and the emotions inspired from it…

Allow me to indulge in some hopeless football romanticism here. After all, in a sport dominated by money, we all need some time to enjoy the heartwarming underdog tales.

Everyone knows the beginning of the story. In the 1970s and 1980s, an enterprising Italian team named Società Sportiva Calcio Napoli wanted to rebuild from previous cup successes and launch themselves as challengers to the main teams of Italian football. They made inspired signings, desired an attacking team, and were on the verge of something great, just needing one key signing to make it happen. This came in 1984, when a then-world record €12 million fee was used to sign a short but powerful and flamboyant Argentine from Barcelona. His name was Diego Armando Maradona. He ended up being pretty good, didn’t he?

Led by the brilliance of Maradona, Napoli won the league in 1987, the first Scudetto in the club’s history and the first time that a team from the south of mainland Italy was crowned champions. They would repeat the feat in 1990, with a UEFA Cup triumph in between for good measure. Maradona became a deity among Neapolitans, the rugged and imperfect but beautiful footballer revered by the rugged and imperfect but beautiful city that he called home. Even to the day he died, he held a God-like presence in Naples, a level of worship that very few in any walk of life have ever achieved. Led by arguably the best player in the world at the peak of his powers, it seemed that this was the time for Napoli to go on a run, add to what they have, and cement themselves as a big player in Italian football. To be the powerhouse that Southern Italy lacked. This was Napoli’s golden era, and it should have been their footballing “Pax Romana”.

But it did not end up this way. And this is the part of the story that many do not know.

Maradona led Argentina to the Final of the 1990 World Cup, held in Italy, but everything would go downhill after that. A drug test administered by the FIGC, Italy’s football governing body, after Argentina’s defeat to West Germany in the Final would find traces of cocaine in Maradona’s system. A hefty punishment from FIFA soon followed. What for some was justice finally being done, for some in Naples was viewed as revenge by the Italian government and the FIGC for Napoli’s success. Maradona left Napoli in disgrace following a 15-month ban from football, and he would be back playing in Argentina only a few years later. Napoli’s footballing and financial fortunes also faced significant decline. Falling on hard financial times, the club was forced to offload players to keep the lights on, including Maradona’s iconic forward partner Careca as well as bourgeoning young talents Gianfranco Zola and Fabio Cannavaro. Despite their best efforts to stay afloat, it would not be enough. The club would be relegated to Serie B in 1998. A glimmer of hope would come after promotion back to Serie A in 2000, but they would go back down the very next season.

In August of 2004, Napoli were declared bankrupt. They stared down the barrel of extinction.

They were immediately revived, though, through the good graces of eccentric film producer Aurelio De Laurentiis. It would be hard work, but survival was possible. Due to their situation, Napoli were forced to restart in Serie C under the name “Napoli Soccer”, temporarily banned from using their traditional name and crest. The passion of the local community remained, though, as 50,000+ fans crowded into their stadium every match even at the lowest levels of Italian football. Two promotions later, SSC Napoli were back in Serie A in 2007, only three years after nearly disappearing. Five years later, Napoli ended their major trophy drought, with goals from Edinson Cavani and Marek Hamšík sinking arch-rival and undefeated champion Juventus in the Coppa Italia Final. The very next season, led by the heroics of Cavani and Hamšík, Napoli finished second. They were nine points behind champions Juventus, but it felt like something was happening. Could their winning ways be on the way back?

And this is where we enter the modern chapter of Neapolitan football: the story of what if? Of almost. Of nearly.

Despite losing Cavani in a big-money move to PSG, Napoli would win the Coppa Italia again in 2014. This would be their last trophy for some time, though, as the “almost” and the “nearly” became the overwhelming theme, when false dawns would crowd the sky. Napoli would make it to the semifinal of the Europa League in 2015 only to lose out to Ukrainian Cinderella story Dnipro. The enigmatic and controversial Maurizio Sarri would arrive as manager, and Napoli would finish second again. Close, but not nearly close enough to stop runaway champions Juventus. Heroic Argentine striker Gonzalo Higuaín had Neapolitans dreaming again before crushing their souls by forcing through a transfer to Juventus and becoming the Judas of the Partenopei faithful. Despite Higuaín’s departure, it was in this time that the core of what many thought could be the next great Napoli team was forming. This was a team so committed to the idea of winning in Naples that they allegedly signed a “Scudetto pact”, vowing not to leave the club until the title was theirs.

2017/18 was supposed to be it, the culmination of the dream, the time when the players’ pact-bound promise would be achieved. Against a historically good Juventus, Napoli fought and clawed for the whole season. They went toe to toe with one of the best teams in Italian football in one of the best title races in the history of Italian football. With five matches to go until the end of the season, Kalidou Koulibaly scored a legendary 90th minute winning goal in Turin to fire Napoli over Juventus 1-0. It felt like it was finally happening, that the dream would become reality. But it did not. A 3-0 loss to Fiorentina the very next week allowed Juventus to cement themselves at the top with a lead they would not surrender. Despite finishing with 91 points, a record high for a Napoli team, Juventus would be champions again, finishing on 95 points. Napoli’s 91 points is the highest points total by an Italian team to not be champions. A decades-long dream was in the palm of their hand, but it slipped out. The fine margins, four total points, ended it all. Many called it a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the Partenopei to win the title they long desired. They had waited 28 years for that opportunity, and many thought they would have to wait at least another 28 more to get another chance like that.

Many more false dawns would come after that fateful season. Legendary manager Carlo Ancelotti arrived in 2018, thought to be the man to finally make the title dreams come true. Despite the legendary pedigree, Ancelotti had a tough time in Naples, ultimately being sacked in December of 2019 and replaced by Gennaro Gattuso. Gattuso would win a trophy in Naples, their first since 2014, with a penalty shootout victory over Juventus in the 2020 Coppa Italia Final, but nothing more would come of that.

And slowly but surely, the core of players that came so close to title glory in 2018, whose supposed “Scudetto pact” bound them together, began leaving the club. Midfield metronome Jorginho, who would become a lynchpin in European Champion Chelsea and Italy teams, would follow Maurizio Sarri to Chelsea in 2018. Legendary captain Marek Hamšík, who would pass Maradona to become Napoli’s then-all-time leading scorer in 2017, would leave for China in January of 2019 after over 500 appearances in a 12 year stint with the club. Lovable goalkeeper Pepe Reina left for Milan around the same time. Aging but reliable defensive stalwart Raúl Albiol moved to Villarreal in 2019. Midfield bulldog Allan left for Everton in 2020. And then the backbreaking moves came. Defensive giant Koulibaly finally got the Premier League move he was long rumored to make, joining Chelsea in the summer of 2022. In the same summer, beloved forward Dries Mertens, who ended up passing both Maradona and Hamšík to be Napoli’s current all-time leading scorer, would move to Turkey on a free transfer. And lastly, Neapolitan native, boyhood Napoli fan, and heart of the team Lorenzo Insigne left for Toronto FC that same summer. That hopeful core was gone. Napoli were adrift. It seemed like many had to wait another generation or longer for their chance at a title.

But little did anyone know that the next great Napoli team was under construction that whole time.

The summer after Hamšík left, another Slovak midfielder came in to replace him in Stanislav Lobotka. The veteran defensive presence of Albiol was replaced by Verona’s Amir Rrahmani. Some spice was added on the wings through the crafty Matteo Politano and scintillating Hirving Lozano. Andre-Franck Zambo Anguissa, fresh off a subpar time in the Premier League, arrived for his renaissance in Italy. Even last summer, when three titans of the club left, they added budding star center back Kim Min-Jae, starlet attacker Giacomo Raspadori, technical gem Tanguy Ndombélé, and super-sub maestro Giovanni Simeone. Luciano Spalletti had the pieces to form a strong team, but like in the 80s, Napoli needed the stars to really tie everything together. In this case, they got two.

Napoli swung for the fences in 2020 when they paid a club record €75 million fee to secure the services of Nigerian striker Victor Osimhen from Lille. A club that knew quite a bit about world-class forwards was taking a chance, a significant one at that, on the promising but still relatively unproven Osimhen. While he dealt with injuries and inconsistencies, his second season showed the potential he had. While he only played 27 league games, he scored 14 goals. A goal every two games is certainly something any football fan would embrace in a striker, and the flashes of promise showed Napoli had something special on their hands. They just needed a partner for Osimhen, a Robin to his Batman. And that came from an unlikely place.

If Osimhen was the headline-grabbing mass-fanfare signing, the arrival of Khvicha Kvaratskhelia from Dinamo Batumi was far more muted for rather understandable reasons. The Georgian wonderkid was well-known among fans of the Football Manager video games, but Kvaratskhelia was far more of an unknown quantity even for relatively in-the-know football fans given his past playing experience being almost entirely isolated in Russia. His rise was nothing short of meteoric, though, as he took Serie A by storm this season. His lightning quick dribbling and lethal finishing endeared him to his new fans, who saw a new club hero being born. They gave him a very lofty and notable nickname: “Kvaradona”.

The team was assembled, Spalletti had them ready. And it was clear that they learned lessons from the past. They lost the title in 2018 by giving other teams too many chances, but this time they were not going to let it be close.

Napoli started the season on fire, winning every game aside from two, two draws against Fiorentina and Lecce, between the start of the season and the break for the Qatar World Cup. A 1-0 loss to Inter upon returning from the World Cup break was a minor bump in the road, as the team simply could not stop winning. They obviously could not keep up this pace for the whole season, and notable losses to Lazio and Milan, as well as elimination from the Champions League by Milan, showed that the seemingly immortal Neapolitans were in fact beatable. But by the time this was demonstrated, Napoli already had a strong enough lead in the table to where it was almost guaranteed for them to be champions.

The coronating moment came on May 4th. In the Stadio Friuli in Udine, Victor Osimhen’s 52nd minute goal sealed the final needed point for Napoli. It was done. They would not be caught. Delirium ensued. Parties in the streets of Naples, fireworks shot off across the city. A moment of incredible joy and the relief of a burden that had weighed them down for decades.

For the first time in 33 years, Società Sportiva Calcio Napoli are champions of Italy.

Who knows what will happen from here? Spalletti has already announced that he will leave the club at the conclusion of the season. Offers will pour in for Victor Osimhen. Kim-Min Jae also looks like he is set to depart. Who knows for how much longer Kvaratskhelia will remain. But one thing is for certain: that night in Udine will never be forgotten by any Neapolitan. These players, regardless of what they do for the rest of their careers, will live forever among Partenopei supporters as the heroes that they are. They have achieved immortality, something that not everyone in any walk of life, let alone in sport, is able to say.

And sometimes, as a neutral, you need to sit back and admire when cool things happen in this sport. So congratulations, Napoli. Congratulations to your players, staff, and supporters. When you know the full story, it definitely becomes much sweeter of a resolution.