All good things must come to an end. But some can be resurrected, it seems.

The Napoli success story of the Diego Maradona era was one the likes of which the club had never seen before – could never have dreamed of, even. This evening, after 21 years, the club tiny in football terms, but huge in its importance to its fans and its city, is back in European Cup action. And if their experience of the Champions League is to be anything like the trials and tribulations of the last few decades, then we are all in for one hell of a ride.

Maradona arrived in Italy in 1984 from Barcelona for 14 billion lire already a flawed genius. When around 80,000 people turned up to the San Paolo to watch him magnetically juggle a ball around after his signing with the Campagna club, it was just a glimpse of things to come. The world’s press corps were there too, and, little though they knew it at the time, they were to have a big say in the end of the beautiful relationship between ‘El Diego’ and the Azzurri seven years later.

A quick look at the club’s trophy cabinet tells you all you need to know about Maradona’s effect on the pitch – before 1984 the club had won nothing more than 2 Coppe Italia and one Serie B title – but would give you no clue as to the murky goings-on which would eventually bring about his exit. For whereas he arrived to great fanfare, with seemingly the whole of southern Italy there to see him, he blew out of town like a thief in the night as his years of excesses and controversy caught up with him.

The YouTube videos can only give you the slightest idea of the Maradona effect. The free-kicks, the touch and lob from 25 yards, the diving header less than a foot off the ground, the run and free-kick v Juventus, the little dink over AC Milan's goalkeeper … it’s the kind of stuff you can watch on a loop for hours on end, and for over half a decade, that’s exactly what Neapolitans were treated to.

Titles came too. Maradona’s titles. Yes, he was surrounded by great players such as Bruno Giordano and Careca, but the Palmares would have been unthinkable without the little Argentine. And the whole world knew it. Most of all, Naples knew it. He was one of them from the moment he stepped on the pitch, but he was even more so once they won the 1987 Serie A crown.

“I consider myself a son of Naples,” crowed Maradona as he finally gave in and talked to the press after indulging in a lap of honour around the San Paolo pitch. It was moments after they’d been crowned kings of Italy for the first time.

But being a ‘son of Naples’ also meant being intrinsically linked with the negative aspects of life in the city. Taking advantage of his huge popularity, he raked in billions upon billions of lire in commercial revenue, but in spending it he came across the excesses which would eventually catch up with him. Controversy first hit when he was pictured in a Jacuzzi with members of the Giuliano family, who ran one of the neighbourhoods in Naples ‘owned’ by the Camorra – the Neapolitan mafia. And it was also in the company of mob bosses where his cocaine habit – first cultivated in his Barcelona days – grew into a serious football-affecting issue.

In 1988 the Azzurri crumbled in the title run-in, taking only one point from their last four fixtures amid accusations of illegal betting aided and abetted by the Camorra, and Milan pounced to collect the Scudetto. Much was said at the time about the relationship between the players and coach Ottavio Bianchi. Even after their title win the year before, the players had chanted anti-Bianchi songs and 12 months on there was an open letter written by a group of players protesting against the coach. Bianchi stayed; four players were sacked. Meanwhile, ‘El Pibe de Oro’ claimed not to have been a part of the rebel group, but was by now missing pre-match ritiri as a matter of course as part of his unprofessional lifestyle, increasingly fuelled by cocaine.
Down to eight men, Milan lost 2-1 to Verona, and Napoli sealed the title. The referee was accused of being a sympathiser to southern Italy. Conspiracy theories are peddled to this day.

Shortly after the club's 1989 Uefa Cup win, Maradona’s head had been turned by an offer from Marseille. Napoli president Corrado Ferlaino was adamant that he wanted the No.10 to stay on, and the move to France collapsed, but Maradona missed the first four games of the 1989-90 season as arguments with the club chief continued.

When he returned, his side won the title, but not without a controversial helping hand in the penultimate round of the season with the Neapolitans trailing Milan on goal difference.

Referee Rosario Lo Bello, the son of one of Italy’s most notorious match officials, sent off Alessandro Costacurta, Frank Rijkaard, Marco van Basten and coach Arrigo Sacchi as Milan lost 2-1 at Verona after taking an early lead. It was enough to swing the title in favour of Napoli, who at the same time cruised to a 4-2 win in rain-soaked Bologna. The next week their 1-0 victory over Lazio sealed the title. Years later Ferlaino claimed Lo Bello was a sympathiser to southern Italian sides, hinting at more Camorra involvement, and though the referee denied the claim, the conspiracy theories are peddled extensively to this day. Paolo Maldini has referred to the game as the biggest scandal of his 25-year playing career, bigger even than Italy's infamous defeat to South Korea at the 2002 World Cup.

In the following summer there came a turning point in Maradona’s relationship with Italy. In the build-up to the Italia 90 semi-final between the host country and Argentina in Naples, Diego called for the people of the city to back their ‘son’ rather than the nation that had sat back and watched them become the downtrodden underclass. Despite the passionate plea, many of those filling the ground backed Italy, with banners telling Diego that, though they loved him, they were still Italian.


After the Argentine national anthem was booed ahead of the final in Rome five days later, Maradona seemingly stopped caring. His drug abuse got worse, and his apathy towards his profession grew.

By November his relationship with the club had hit an all-time low. On the Monday before a crunch European Cup match against Spartak Moscow, Maradona failed to meet the travelling party as they headed for Russia. When concerned team-mates visited his apartment in Posillipo, they were informed by the player’s minder that he was busy sleeping. What he didn’t add was that he was sleeping off the effects of a night out heavily punctuated by sex and cocaine.

Maradona eventually arrived in Moscow on the Tuesday after taking his own flight out, but before joining his team-mates he headed for Lenin’s mausoleum for a little sight-seeing. The following night he was left on the bench, and though he would turn in a decent performance in the second half, the club had had enough.

Ferlaino and sporting director Luciano Moggi took Maradona’s private company to court, wanting a cut of his earnings back since he wasn’t fulfilling his obligations to the club. His tantrums had become too much for them, they said, and though it wasn’t stated publicly, they’d clearly grown sick of the controversy too.
With an illegitimate child, a strong link with Camorra bosses, huge tax debts and an increasing cocaine problem, it was all due to come to a climax. It did in March 1991 when Maradona failed a random drugs test. The club had had enough.

With an illegitimate child, a strong link with Camorra bosses, huge tax debts and an increasing cocaine problem, it was all due to come to a climax. It did in March 1991 when Maradona failed a random drugs test after a game with Bari. Club officials would later admit that they had taken to switching urine samples in the knowledge that Diego had cocaine in his system, but by this time it was in their interests to help force him out. The media had a field day, and the Argentine fled.

By 2004, with the Maradona era almost forgotten, the Napoli rollercoaster had hit such a dip that the club went bankrupt. Three months on, a new Napoli was founded, and under president Aurelio De Laurentiis they gained two promotions in the following three years to return to Serie A after nine years in the doldrums. But the return to the very top of European football is the start of yet another new chapter for the club.

Tonight’s clash with Manchester City is Napoli’s first European Cup match since that fateful tie in Moscow, and the presence of Mario Balotelli in the opposing ranks is an uncanny coincidence.
Controversy | Like Maradona, Balotelli is never far from the headlines

Though not gifted with the skill of Maradona, Balotelli is perhaps the most controversial footballer in the peninsula since Diego abandoned the country 20 years ago, and later this week will appear in court to testify in a money laundering investigation involving the Camorra. The striker visited the Naples suburb of Scampia last year, and was allegedly given a tour by members of a gang associated to the mafia. He claims he just wanted to see some of the locations of the acclaimed film ‘Gomorrah’, based on organised crime.

The plot thickens with the involvement of Napoli’s Argentine forward Ezequiel Lavezzi, who will be questioned about his role in a fight in December 2010 in the same Posillipo area Maradona once called home. It is alleged that the fight involved a member of the Camorra.

On the pitch, Napoli are a success again. Off the field, the Camorra’s involvement in football is seemingly building once more. Success and controversy: they go hand in hand in the city of Naples. The city that welcomed Diego Maradona as their ‘son’, that has taken Lavezzi and Edinson Cavani to their hearts, that continues to defy deprivation with the simple thirst for life and love of football.

Tonight marks the rebirth. And as the Champions League anthem blasts out with Lavezzi in the line-up, and both Maradona’s son-in-law and Balotelli in the opposition ranks, the reminders of Napoli’s ties with success and controversy will be all around.

Napoli are back. Success and controversy? Bring it on.

Kris Voakes

baresi wrote:funny and not surprsing how Luciano Moggi's name is mentioned, where there is a scandal.

baresi wrote:funny and not surprsing how Luciano Moggi's name is mentioned, where there is a scandal.

baresi wrote:funny and not surprsing how Luciano Moggi's name is mentioned, where there is a scandal.

juventus101 wrote:

-De Sanctis-
--Campagnaro-- --Cannavaro-- --Aronica--
---Maggio--- ---Inler--- ---Gargano--- ---Hamsik---
----Lavezzi---- ----Pandev----
-----Cavani-----

Lord Spencer wrote:

baresi wrote:funny and not surprsing how Luciano Moggi's name is mentioned, where there is a scandal.

Funny that the Mafia were involved an not Moggi, yet you intentionally ignore that.

Camurrìa.Sto.Stronzo wrote:

baresi wrote:funny and not surprsing how Luciano Moggi's name is mentioned, where there is a scandal.

LMAO? This coming from a guy who supports a club with a corupt Prime Minister named Berlusconi mentioned each and every day for his scandals through out Italy for years and years, his allegations with the Mafia and etc... I love how you condradic yourself buddy.