More than the mafia: Winning Serie A helped Napoli show the city’s true colors

Every time Michelangelo Iossa walked out onto the streets of Naples with his 15-year-old son, they’d find a clue that the biggest celebration in decades was in the works.

Iossa, a local journalist and reporter for Corriere della Sera, one of Italy’s oldest newspapers, was 15 himself when Serie A club Napoli won the first of their only three Italian championships. His son Luigi always asked him what it was like back then when Diego Maradona, the rebellious Argentine playmaker, led the team to titles in 1987 and 1990.

With every makeshift altar, every candle lit for Maradona, and every flag draped over a balcony, Luigi could finally understand what winning does to this tribal metropolis.

“I always said, ‘Luigi, when we win the Scudetto, you will see the greatest celebration possible,'” Iossa recalled in an interview with theScore. “It’s more than a world championship, it’s more than a European championship. It’s like the Carnival in Rio de Janeiro or the Dia de M

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