It has been a long hard trek, but the Napoli fans remain as passionate as ever for their first Serie A campaign since 2001. The city that elected Diego Armando Maradona as a deity with murals on every house has been starved of top flight football, but even after their bankruptcy and restart in Serie C in 2004, there were on average 50,000 supporters packing into the San Paolo. Now they’re back and intend to stay there.
The glory days of Napoli are the late 1980s and early 90s, when Maradona reigned supreme with Antonio Careca, Ciro Ferrara, Andrea Carnevale and Salvatore Bagni. The first Scudetto arrived on May 10, 1987, when El Pibe de Oro was fresh from Argentina’s 1986 World Cup triumph. That year they also became the first team since Il Grande Torino and Juventus to do the Double with the Coppa Italia.
In 1989-90 Luciano Moggi took control and brought in more talents like Alemao and a young Gianfranco Zola for their second title snatched from the grasp of Arrigo Sacchi’s Milan and the UEFA Cup, followed by a crushing 5-1 Italian Super Cup victory over Juventus.
Maradona’s decline and departure coincided with some disastrous financial mismanagement and Napoli slowly crumbled until their relegation to Serie B and later bankruptcy in 2004. Movie mogul Aurelio De Laurentiis constructed an all-new club that within three years had climbed back into Serie A with the practical Edy Reja ensuring the strongest defensive record in the 2006-07 campaign.
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