The legend that turned São Paulo into Maradona’s stadium

“Ah, if you know what you missed.” This is how Napoli fans shouted on May 10, 1987, addressing their dead in the cemeteries of the poor Italian city, which they lit with joys as if they did not live, perhaps throughout their history, after the Argentine legend Diego Armando Maradona led them to the title of the Italian first division, for the first time in its history.

When Maradona decided to play in the heavenly jersey in the summer of 1984, everything changed in the southern city. Naples, which was a modest senior team in Italy, managed to crown five championships in the ninth decade of the 20th century, and after 36 years Maradona left, after a fight against the disease, he ended up with a sudden heart attack that claimed his life , and the whole world ran to honor the icon, who was rated by many as the best player in the history of football, but certainly the honor in Naples was very different.

The municipality of Naples officially agreed yesterday to transfer the name of the “San Paolo” stadium to the “Diego Armando Maradona” stadium in honor of the legend who wore the team’s jersey for seven years, during which he toured Italian and even European stadiums, where he carried to the Italian team to crown the European Cup in 2003. 1989.

While it is not at all easy for a major European team to change the name of their stadium, which was historically associated with the minds of fans, and gained special value in media and marketing, what Maradona presented makes these matters marginal, in addition to perpetuating a different name to the entire history of Naples.

Maradona brought a message of hope and beauty to the entire city. It showed that success and resurrection were possible. He was always with the simple and common people. Maradona fought against the discrimination of the people of Naples, he was a true son of the city, no one like him joined the body and soul of Naples, so said Luigi Di Majestris, mayor of Naples, in his historic statement on Friday, through which officially announced the name change of the Naples Stadium to “Diego Armando Maradona”.

In 1984, no one on Earth imagined that Napoli would pay more than ten million dollars in exchange for acquiring the services of Maradona, the star of the Barça team at the time, to once again become the most expensive player in football history. , After the Catalan club paid a record amount also for the contract. With “Golden Boy” from the ranks of Boca Juniors two years before that date.

The scene of the reception of 75 thousand Neapolitan fans, their new icon at the Stadio San Paolo and hundreds of thousands on the streets of Naples remained one of the “majestic” scenes in the history of the round witch. Maradona entered the huge stadium carrying a message of hope for the entire city, and the English writer David Goldblatt described the scene of Maradona’s reception as The crowd was convinced that the “Savior” had arrived in Naples.

“We have problems related to unemployment, roads, transportation, schools and sanitation,” said a local newspaper in Naples when Maradona arrived on July 5, 1984, “but it doesn’t matter, we have Maradona!”

Three years after his signing, and after a year of the legendary saga that he presented in Mexico, when he led the Argentine team to the World Cup title, the date of the harvest in Naples arrived, and Maradona presented a unique match against AC Milan , on the twenty-seventh day of the League. First division, he scored a historic goal that led his team to a 2-1 victory, to get close to the exceptional title, two weeks before it was officially decided after a draw with Fiorentina on the penultimate round.

With the same madness with which the city welcomed him in 1984, the Naples fans welcomed his legend with unequaled longing, when he visited “San Paolo” in 2005 after an absence of 14 years, where he appeared to pay tribute to Ciro Ferrara, his Former colleague in Naples and one of the Juventus legends, to confirm again after years. Since his retirement he is the only king of “San Paolo”, and he is an icon of the historic stadium, whose fame has doubled internationally thanks to his innovations, and thanks to his passionate personality that attracted worldwide attention to southern Italy. for the past seven years.

The historical bond that united Maradona and San Paolo became clear in the 1990 World Cup final on Italian soil, when the stadium embraced Argentina’s clashes with the Soviet Union and Romania in the first round, and Maradona and his teammates received a great help.

At the end of the tournament, Maradona expressed his gratitude because “San Paolo” was the only stadium in which the Argentine national peace was not received with whistles, but that support stopped in the semifinals, when the same stadium received the confrontation of the national teams from Italy and Argentina, and Maradona asked the Naples fans to continue supporting. The selection of his country, but they received him with a historical message in the stands, which said: “We love you, Maradona, but Italy is our home.”

Maradona passed away on November 25, and thousands of Napoli fans came to his historic stadium, to greet the most famous of those who ran in their land, and from December 4, 2020 Diego won the true honor he deserved in a city you will never forget, so everyone is ready to race under his name, in the stadium. Diego Armando Maradona “.