FNH

In Naples, a city steeped in pagan rites, I saw Maradona cast his spell

29-Nov-2020 09:00:23 | The Guardian

A personal memoir of the passionate, intense bond between the Argentinian and his adopted city, which saw his triumphs and his tragic downfall

On the evening that Napoli football club won its first ever championship, in May 1987, a graffito was scrawled on the wall of Poggioreale cemetery, on the city’s shoulders as it rises from the gulf of Naples: “Voi non sapete che cosa vi siete persi” – roughly, you don’t know what you missed. Overnight came the reply: “E chi u l’he detto?” – who told you we missed it?

This is how Naples thinks, and holds in its heart the mercurial genius largely responsible for winning that scudetto: Diego Maradona. And now that “Dieguito” himself has passed over to the other side, the city’s head of cemeteries, Alessio Castiello, and funeral director Gennaro Tammaro, urge the city to commission and erect a statue of, and monument to, Maradona.