First, a quick Italian lesson: Calcio = Football = Soccer
Second—although “Naples” and “Napoli” mean the same thing, in this article I am going to use the former to refer to the city, and the latter to refer to the team.
Today is a special one—my long-awaited visit to Stadio Deigo Armando Maradona to see SSC Napoli play!
I got into soccer/football a few years ago through a bit of an unusual route. For most Americans, the English Premier League is the entry point into European football (i.e. Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester United, etc.), but for THIS American, it was Serie A (which is the name of the Italian league). I suppose I was just looking for ways to feel more connected to Italy from my then-home in the U.S., so this definitely scratched that itch. But which team to root for? This was a challenging question to answer in the Premier League, where I didn’t have much connection to any team in particular, but in Italy, the choice was clear.
There is a strong regional divide between the north and the south in Italy. In summary, the north is rich and the south is poor. I—like most Americans of Italian descent—am from the south. And there is pretty much only one South Italian team that is a contender for anything, ever: Napoli. So I am all in on Napoli, and I’ll be in it for the long haul!
Naples takes its calcio seriously. Support for Napoli is almost a religious belief here, and the fact that images of Maradona (the most famous Napoli player ever) outnumber images of Jesus in the streets of Naples can serve as proof of that. But it’s not just Maradona; there are images of the Napoli logo and Napoli players everywhere around Naples. I’ve compiled a gallery below to show you, and I want to draw your attention to 3 images in particular that really amused me:
The first is a sign for a barbershop showing photographs of the barber giving haricuts to a bunch of famous Napoli players like Giovanni Di Lorenzo, Piotr Zielinski, Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, Andre-Frank Zambo Anguissa, Leo Østigard, Matteo Politano, Giovanni Simeone, Min-Jae Kim, and more.
The second is an image of a player in a black and white striped jersey in a toilet—this is a sign for a plumber, a the player in the toilet is wearing a Juventus kit. Everybody hates Juventus.
The third is an image of the late, great Maradona kneeling next to Jesus as if Jesus is his child. The subtext here is that Maradona is God. His kit number was 10, so they actually call him “D10” or “D10s”, which means “God” in Italian and Spanish respectively. This image is hilarious to me because it feels a bit sacrilegious… and Naples is a super religious, traditional place. 😂
Last year, Napoli actually won the league for the first time since 1990, all the way back during Maradona’s day. Think about that: the last time Napoli won the league, the Soviet Union was still a thing. So Napoli had waited a long time, and when the stretch of matches finally arrived where Napoli was expected to mathematically clinch the title, the U.S. Department of State actually issued travel advisories for Naples. The entire city was a giant party for days when it happened. I was having big-time FOMO watching the footage from the other side of the world. Napoli was really incredible that season; they actually destroyed Liverpool here 4-1 in Champions League. It was something to behold.
However, this season has been… different. More on that soon.
Making The Journey to Stadio Deigo Armando Maradona
The stadium is in a suburb of Naples called Fuorigrotta, which is north of the city center, up the coast a bit. I was warned multiple times that the Napoli stadium is not in a great neighborhood. In a city like Naples, this was somewhat intimidating, so did my best to go into the experience with my head on a swivel.
Now that I’ve been there and done that, here’s my verdict: Fuorigrotta isn’t that bad. Basic street smarts is all you need.
Naples does have a subway that would have supposedly been able to bring us straight here… but after 15 minutes of running around the city block where the nearest entrance to us was supposed to be located, we gave up and got a taxi over here.
The taxi was able to get us relatively close to the stadium before the congestion got too dense to continue. After buying some Napoli swag, we got in one of the long lines to get into the stadium.
Even from a distance, it was obvious that, compared to the Premier League stadiums I’d visited back in London, this was going to feel extremely run-down. But again, this is part of the deal in Naples. The fact that this team was stomping all over Liverpool last season is all the more incredible with this context.
There are some stadiums that are designed such that there is not a bad seat in the house. This is not one of them.
I thought we had gotten pretty good seats being that we were only a few rows from the front behind the goal, but because the “front” is a considerable ways back from the actual pitch, it wasn’t the best viewing experience ever. If I were to come back, I’d either go for a seat on the long sides, or a seat in the balcony behind one of the goals. Anyway, it was still an awesome experience.
So here’s the run-down on this game. Atalanta is a good team. Pep Guardiola once said that playing Atalanta “is like going to the dentist.” They aren’t the most noteworthy team, but they are not an easy match for anybody. They are based in a town just north of Milan called Bergamo, so they are part of the wealthy north.
Meanwhile, Napoli is having an absolutely horrible season. I think most people expected some sort of drop-off after winning the Scudetto last year… but I didn’t think it would be this bad. Incredibly, aside from Min-Jae Kim going to Bayern München, Napoli managed to keep their championship squad mostly in tact this season. The only real difference is the coach—Luciano Spalletti—who landed the coveted spot of being the Italian National Team coach after his success with Napoli. I miss that guy.
Anyway, at the time of this match, it was still a real possibility that Napoli could once again qualify for Champions League next year. They were actually competing for the slot against Atalanta, so this game was the make-or-break moment for them.
Spoiler: Napoli will not be playing Champions League football next year.
Except for the fact that Khvicha Kvaratskhelia was injured, Napoli actually fielded a great squad. Victor Osimhen, Matteo Politano, and Giacomo Raspadori held the front line, while Lobotka, Traorè, and Zambo Anguissa made up the midfield, and Rrahmani, Di Lorenzo, Jesus, and Rui made up the backline. I was optimistic.
Unfortunately, Atalanta was up 3-nil by the end of the game, thanks to goals from Gianluca Scamacca (a recent transfer from West Ham), Aleksey Miranchuk, and Teun Koopmeiners. Here are photos from the game.
And here’s the highlights from the game. Set VPNs to US in order to watch.
Most of the chatter around me was in Italian, so I didn’t get to do much successful eavesdropping, but as we were leaving the stadium, a woman’s voice speaking in English cut through the noise as if it was speaking directly to me.
“SORRY THAT YOU SAW ONE OF THE WORST MATCH EVER” (thick Italian accent) 😂
We, again, tried and failed to catch public transportation. Supply definitely was exceeding demand after the match, so we started walking along the road thinking that we’d be be able to hail a taxi at some point. Little did we know—at the outset of that walk—that the journey home was going to take us 2 hours. We got a nice view of Vesuvius though since it was the least hazy day we’d had yet.
There’s a rule in Naples that taxis can only pick up new passengers as designated locations, where the taxis all form a big queue. If you wave at them as they pass you on the road, they will gesture in the direction of the nearest pick-up point that they can think of. I knew this, but I was waving at all of them anyway. And that’s when one of them—was already driving 2 Dutch guys—finally pulled over. Since we all knew that we were operating outside of the system, he felt comfortable quoting us a super high fixed rate (instead of using the meter), and we said “WHATEVER!” There was some awkwardness at the end of the ride when we had no cash and his credit card machine couldn’t get signal, but luckily he accepted PayPal. 😂
TRACK OF THE DAY → Another song from Gomorrah.
UP NEXT → An even worse massacre than what happened to Napoli today: the ruins of Pompeii.
