The life and times of Diego Maradona in Napoli (1984-91)
- rehaan díaz
- Sep 22, 2020
- 8 min read
Updated: Nov 3, 2020
Diego Maradona' stint in Naples was what made the man and fed his myth. It was ever-fascinating and merits revisiting.
Everyone in life has problems and football turns out to be the cheapest therapy. ~ Diego Forlán, World Cup 2010 Golden Ball winner
Uruguay's Forlán has told one of the simple truths of life. His namesake and fellow South American, in the 80s, a couple of generations before him was therapy to a whole city in Europe. In his 7 tumultuous, rambunctious years in southern Italy, Diego Armando Maradona rose to global superstardom. His posters and murals adorned walls, all the way from Buenos Aires to Napoli, from Sevilla to Calcutta.
A lot of Ballon d'Or winners (6) have played for Barcelona. And while Maradona was at Nou Camp for two seasons (1982-84), it is not where his legacy was cemented. It was in Naples - one of the oldest continuously inhabited urban areas in the world. It had a vivid history, but not in the footballing sense. He went to Napoli, shattering the world record transfer fee for the second time (£5 million). The only player since World War II to do so, following his move from Boca Juniors to Barcelona 2 years earlier.
To paraphrase Italian historian John Foot, Napoli seemed a strange choice to make at that time. Serie A was the richest and most powerful league in the world. All the best players went to Italy, particularly to the northern giants - AC Milan, Juventus, Inter Milan. But Napoli, in its history, had won two cups. That was it. It never won the championship (Scudetto). It was not a successful team. It was not even a club that was looking like being successful. The port city of Naples teemed with football enthusiasts (Napoli Ultras) who for all their passion had disproportionately few trophies to showboat. But now they had the best player in the world. A bankrupt city was doubling-down to sign the most expensive player in the world in a bizarrely Italian way. It was a heady cocktail that if nothing, promised entertainment - some on the ground and a lot more off it.
The technical uniqueness of Maradona
As per the Argentine, football is a game of deceit. Without a shadow of a doubt, he was the greatest exponent of the feint. He would pretend to move one way only to slither the other, leaving imbalanced opponents tumbling on the floor, and then just to show off, he would cut back to go another way. He would zag when expected to zig and he slithered through many defences even as defenders would try to chop his feet off with furious challenges of ever-increasing intensity.
His low center-of-gravity helped him to not fall and stay on to dribble as tackles flew in thick and fast. Despite this, he would survey the surrounding for those defence-splitting passes that left the full-backs thoroughly embarrassed and the crowd cheering in joy. He could take a lot of hits on ankles, on shins, on feet, on calves, even on his face, and still move on in his pursuit of scoring and assisting. Sometimes, he would cheat a little like a street thug, apart from cheating gravity to deliver that final pass.
In a rough, tough, and cantankerous league, he brought beauty. On his days, which often were every other weekend, he was damn near impossible to play against. He brought a Latin American enthusiasm to every game and played with speed, rock solid-balance, jaw-dropping technique, immense pride, and pure love for the football.
The peak of his career
From relegation-threatened in 1983-84 to mid-table in 1984-85 to top 3 in 1985-86, the progress by Napoli was visible. The racist chants by northern clubs was an underhand acknowledgement of their growing threat. Napoli for them was the sewer of Italy and its inhabitants were vermins who spread cholera. Maradona fed off this vitriol and in his second season (1985-86), the club improved by leaps and bound.
He went into the 1986 World Cup in México in good form. While the press had already written off Argentina, but they continued to defy riding on their captain. Realms have been written about his sterling performances against England in the quarters and Belgium in the semis - scoring a brace each which included the Hand of God and the goal of the century.
Through sheer force of desire, he dragged them into the finals, to the brink of history. When the final against West Germany was locked at 2-2 in the dying minutes, he made a delightful pass to set striker Jorge Luis Burruchaga free and score for the winning goal.
This is possibly the only instance of a great player single-handedly leading his team to World Cup glory. It was pure Diego. At 25, he has the world at his feet and a World Cup trophy to cradle. But, there's another part - that of Maradona, that fed the myth of being the greatest footballer in the world.
Napoli's first-ever Scudetto
He returned as a World Cup winner to Italy and the press could never get enough of him. But there's also a cost to fame. He had sired a kid in the spring with his sister's friend - Cristina Sinagra and the media wouldn't let him off. He was in a relationship with teenage sweetheart Claudia Villafañe, but he had had his fair share of misdemeanours and flings. This one caught up with him. He refused to take paternity tests and in the denial was the proof. He was Roman Catholic, but he was no saint. Naples just ordained him to be one even as he sinned a lot and carried the burden of the truth of his wrongdoings.
In midst of this all, in his third season, on 10 May 1987, the scudetto was delivered. The first in Napoli's history. The city was awash with blue colours of the club - drunk on the feat as parties went on for days on end. The Coppa Italia followed shortly. When he had escaped from Barcelona, nobody expected him to win at Napoli.
In 3 seasons, he turned around a club's fortunes and a city's narrative. 'Winning the Italian league completed their social redemption', according to Napoli defender Ciro Ferrara. The port lying at the ankle of Italy by the Mediterranean Sea was now a compelling new force, led by the best player in the world.
The other side of Maradona
Notwithstanding his anointment as a God, he had Dionysian streaks - the sensual, spontaneous, and emotional aspects of human nature were alive and popping in his blood; that led to giving in to temptations of flesh, money, food, and desire. He had discovered cocaine but was not addicted to it yet. Naples revered and protected him (we will come to that later). A bravura performance will be followed by wee-hour fiestas, night-outs at discotheques, and raves that will then quickly make way for frantic training to get fit for the next weekend's game.
The next two seasons, the club finished second in the league. In 1987-88 they lost their final 3 league matches to hand the title and were accused by the fans of doing it at the behest of the Italian mafia. In 1988-89, they won the UEFA Cup becoming the champions of Europe. In the aftermath of the celebration, he asked the club President Corrado Ferlaino, the man who bought and brought him to sell him to another club. Nobody kills the goose who lays the golden eggs. Ferlaino refused. Somehow for Maradona, anger begets genius.
While he fell into the vortex of drugs to try and escape the captivity, frequenting after-parties in hotels and strip clubs, the results kept coming on the pitch. Napoli were topping the league again. Ferlaino and the press were aware that someone else was standing-in to take the drug-tests for their captain. The city was protecting him. In April 1990, the second scudetto was secured and another page was added into the folklore.
This pint-sized Argentine was like candy-flavoured cocaine for the fans - something so enamouring to their veins that letting go was not an option. Naples-born World Cup and Ballon d'Or winner Fabio Cannavaro, who was a ball boy at the club and as a teenager trained with the great man, recollects,
“Maradona is a God to the people of Naples. He changed history. In 80 years, we had always suffered, fighting against relegation, yet in seven seasons with him we won two leagues, a UEFA Cup, two Italian Cups. I’m a fan too and to live those years (as a child) with Maradona in Napoli was incredible. Being on the pitch when they won the Scudetto was amazing.”
Cocaine first became a necessity, and then an unshakeable addiction for the man as respected as the city's patron saint Gennaro. So much so that a vial of his blood was placed in the San Gerrano cathedral by a nurse. The Camorra Mafiosi was his conduit to the white powder. The Giuliano clan knew and understood that this was how they can have him pinned under their thumb. Everyone wanted to be in his reflected glory, even if by subterfuge or malice.
Serbian film director and Palme d'Or winner Emir Kusturica was in awe of the magnitude of the Argentine's hold on people.
"I asked myself, 'Who is this man? Who is this footballing magician, this Sex Pistol of international football, this cocaine victim who kicked the habit, looked like Falstaff and was as weak as spaghetti?' If Andy Warhol had still been alive, he would have definitely put Maradona alongside Marilyn Monroe and Mao Tse-tung. I'm convinced that if he hadn’t been a footballer, he'd've become a revolutionary."
The beginning of the end
1990. It was time for the World Cup in Italy. In the semis, it was Italy versus Argentina, in Naples. He played up the north-south divide and said that nothing would make him happier than the support of the Neapolitans for Argentina. There was one problem though - they had to do it against their own country.
Italians supported Italy and it felt odd to play at his own club ground without much support. Yet, after a tense game, penalties were needed to separate the teams were locked 1-1 after extra-time. Napoli and Argentina's Maradona scored the decisive penalty. And that was it. He became the most hated person in Italy.
It is here that the protagonist had stayed long enough to be painted as the anti-hero. His revolutionary antics became revolting. He went from being revered to reviled. From Dios (God) to Diablo (Devil). The whole country turned on him. It was easy to frame him in drug possession and trafficking case. No one was going to rescue him. That's exactly what happened through the wiretapping operation called Operation China in January 1991. The state, tax officials, and police were gunning for him. He didn't have the mafia protection who wanted the spotlight of being associated with Maradona off them. With no recourse, he pleaded guilty, taking a suspended sentence of 14 months and a hefty fine of 5 million liras. In March, he failed a drug test and he was banned until June 1992.
Naples took out a lot from him, and he gave them a lot. They still loved him, but it was impossible for him to carry on in Italy. He arrived as a saviour, welcomed by thousands, but he left alone. He fled, fearing arrest, his best days behind him.
After serving a 15-month ban for failing a drug test, he moved to Spanish La Liga club Sevilla in 1992. He returned to Argentina to play for Newell's Old Boys (1993-94). His career petered off where it rose from as he retired after a 2-year stint with Boca Juniors.
Naples is a fascinating city and Napoli a bustling club, both feeding off each other. Naples invented pizza, crafted sfogliatella, and is film-maker Vittorio De Sica's home - and even he couldn't direct this story. It has been the centre of the cholera epidemics, been at the receiving end of the fury of Mount Vesuvius's lava and was the most bombed Italian city during World War II.
It is the venue of San Paulo stadium where Diego Maradona displayed his wizardry for 7 years. A black kid (his father Don Diego is from an indigenous background) born in a pauper of a neighbourhood in Buenos Aires in the poorest of decades, who went on to mean so much to the Neapolitans - another city quite similar to his borough. The revealing documentary Diego Maradona (2019) by Asif Kapadia has an uncredited TV host saying what this man meant to them.
Neapolitans had inside them, more than God perhaps, Maradona.
His stint in Naples was what made the man and fed his myth. It was ever-fascinating and merits revisiting - the life and times of Diego Maradona in Naples. Seldom has a player and a city been in such a stormy affair, with their trajectories intrinsically linked. Maradona is immortal in Naples and the Naples beats in his tragic heart.
Originally published on 11 April 2020
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