For Napoli fans, 2022 brought yet another summer of regret. Sealing their Champions League return represented a good campaign but, once again, ‘good’ wasn’t enough. From August to October 2021, the Partenopei had shown glimpses of heights often promised, but not achieved, since Diego Maradona’s epoch in the late 1980s.
The Naples air carried that bittersweet taste of summer 2018, when one of the city’s most beautiful teams somehow emerged empty-handed from a record-breaking 91-point season. With four games remaining, Napoli were within a single point of Juventus, after Kalidou Koulibaly’s last-minute winner to sink the Old Lady. Given their form and favourable schedule, Napoli were primed to overtake them. A week later, Juventus rallied from 2-1 down with three minutes left at Inter to win 3-2. The following day, Napoli suffered an emotional collapse at Fiorentina, Koulibaly’s sixth-minute red card triggering a 3-0 defeat and four-point deficit. The dream died again.
Four years later, Luciano Spalletti’s team made a flying start just as Maurizio Sarri’s had done: opening with eight wins in a row, they topped Serie A at the start of December 2021. Then came three consecutive home defeats to Atalanta, Empoli and Spezia. They responded after Christmas to stay in the title race until April but, going into the final turn, they had lost too much ground on Milan and Inter and finished seven points off top spot.
The Napoli teams of 2017-18 and 2021-22 both played some spectacular football, yet neither could clinch the title. A scudetto was just beyond the club’s grasp. It’s a common lament in Italy’s third city.
