'Mad Friday': Fans jubilation at Napoli triumph

Finally, with a minute of the last game of the season to go, Napoli’s fans felt confident enough to call it. From the steep, curved bank of the Stadio Diego Armando Maradona, smoke billowed from three flares: one green, one white, one red. Napoli, they knew, were going to be Italian champions once again.

Gazzetta dello Sport had called it “Mad Friday:” with Napoli leading Inter Milan by a single point going into the final game of the season, the league had decided to bring both team’s games forward from Sunday, a simultaneous title showdown. There were, in the event, no twists or turns: Napoli beat Cagliari comfortably, 2-0, rendering Inter’s win irrelevant.

Napoli’s last title, two years ago, was its first in 30 years, since Maradona himself. The scale of the celebrations were due to the frustration and yearning of those fallow decades. The novelty had not worn off.

Tens of thousands of fans had gathered on Piazza del Plebiscito to watch the game on a giant screen; many more were waiting at the gates of the Maradona, marshalled by a huge police presence. Fireworks exploded when Scott McTominay put Napoli ahead, and when Romelu Lukaku doubled the lead.

The victory, the fourth in Napoli’s history, has many heroes: the bombastic and divisive De Laurentiis, who rescued the club from bankruptcy; the coach, Antonio Conte, now Italian champion with three different clubs; and, probably most of all, McTominay, overlooked by Manchester United but now Serie A’s Player of the Season.

When he emerged for the trophy presentation, McTominay had sprayed his hair blue, along with many of his teammates. They were ready for Mad Friday. It will go on, if events of 2023 are anything to go by, for some time. Rory Smith