In the week leading up to Napoli’s first league title win in 1987, a prayer appeared on the windows and walls of Naples. It read:
“Our Maradona,
Who Takes The Field
We Have Hallowed Thy Name
Thy Kingdom Is Napoli
Lead Us Not Into Disappointment
But Deliver Unto Us The Title”
In Naples, football is a religion, and Diego Maradona has been God ever since that 1987 Serie A title. It marked an historic moment for the traditionally underdeveloped “Mezzogiorno” (south of Italy), crippled by high rates of unemployment and by the active presence of organised crime.
When Napoli won that title, it was a form of redemption for a poor south, both global and local, which had spent its life with northern compatriots looking down their noses at them. Little wonder that Maradona, the
