🩵⚽️🤍 Forza Napoli 🤍⚽️🩵

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🩵⚽️🤍  Forza Napoli - Grazie Ragazzi 🤍⚽️🩵



We’ve made the hard adjustment to referring to soccer as football and just in time to soak in some local football culture! 


6.5 minute YouTube documentary with 
some good imagery and English subtitles

There are a lot of football ⚽️ leagues in all of Europe and Italy is no exception. There are Italian leagues that play all over Europe and there are several levels that only play within Italy. There are more leagues, cups, and championships than I’ve invested in learning about. SerieA Italia league however quickly became a must-learn. 

    

Napoli, as Naples is known locally, hasn’t won the Scudetto in 33 years. This is the Italian Championship. The best of the best of Italy and a source of intense local pride for the team that wins the Scudetto. I assumed it would be national pride but Italy is intensely regional. Italy only became a unified country in 1848. Centuries prior each region was unique and independent and fiercely prideful. 


Those rivalries and regional distinctions are found in many parts of daily Italian culture - from food dishes, history, architecture, and dialects. And sports. For a long time the Italian Championship was limited to only the Northern teams. Naples is always seen as the gritty, impoverished, less refined Italy and the funding for players and stadiums reflects that as well. 



When we arrived in January there was a buzz that THIS season was different. Brian, being Brian, quickly emersed himself in local sports lore and followed the team. He even tried to get tickets to a game but even that is a cult experience here. As the season end got closer the team just got better. Every piazza in town was decked out in sky blue and white. Streamers were hung from light poles and across roads. Flags and banners were draped from balconies and overpasses. Public stairways were painted and more and more jerseys were seen in the streets.  


In all the major sports we follow there is a regular season, play offs, and either a championship series or game. This is is Italy and nothing is simple. Even football scores. Teams get points for wins and ties and it’s a mathematical race to the top. A few weeks ago Napoli became the likely mathematical winner. They would basically have to forfeit the rest of the season’s games to not win the title because they had so many more accumulated points over the next place team. And thus the wait began. For a few following games it was a matter of having a specific team lose or tie and Napoli win and they’d clinch the Scudetto. Then they didn’t win. Same scenario a different night. Napoli tie instead of a win. Their eventual win of this 33 year elusive cup was imminent but not yet secured. 

 


The energy in the city built with every game. More streamers. More flags. More blue uniforms in the streets. More pride. More intensity.


It was incredible to be in Napoli, to be in our new home, in our new adopted city, when they secured the win to have the points to be the Scottedo winners. Witnessing something that is so important to every Neapolitan made us feel more Neapolitan and more welcomed to the city. All around our apartment erupted in blue and white fireworks and then red, white, and green fireworks. FOR HOURS. They take fireworks serious here (weddings, births, deaths...something nearly every night) but this was next level. 

Our neighbouring condo


People were yelling in the streets. The condo over had a crashendo of songs sung by exuberant adults and kids. One kid came onto their balcony and did a hulk pose and yell because he just couldn't contain it. HUGE flags on tiny scooters up and down the streets. A clown car equivalent of a vespa, complete with six dudes, piled high, thigh squeezing for dear life, went zipping by with a selfie stick filming their moment. It was wild. It was intense. It was pure Napoli from what we are told.

We all wore our blue in support of the team when we went to our pre game dinner

The fireworks around Napoli after their win. 
We took some from our balcony but we can't see all of town

Next year we will try to go to a game and hunt down our own sky blue and white uniforms and scarfs as our assimilation into European, Italian, and Neapolitan culture continues. 


Vesuvio in the background of the Maradona Stadium 


The title of this compilation is "Crazy scenes around Napoli." 33 years in the making




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