In came South Korean Kim Min-jae, Macedonian Elif Elmas, Mexico’s Hirving (Chucky) Lozano and Khvicha Kvaratskhelia from Georgia.
They cut more than €10-million (about $14.9-million) from their already low wage bill, and Napoli fans were aghast.Īt that point, Napoli bosses apparently borrowed a lesson from the book and film of the same name Moneyball (starring Brad Pitt) and used data analytics and adventurous scouting to find undervalued players in overlooked parts of the planet. Together, they sold most of their prominent, older players, including Lorenzo Insigne, a hometown boy who last year went to Toronto FC, and Dries Mertens, who had been Napoli’s top scorer in history. Two years ago, he recruited a new manager, Luciano Spalletti, who had successful, if sometimes spotty, careers at several Italian clubs, including Roma and Inter Milan, but had never won a Scudetto. Incredibly, Napoli actually reduced its payroll in recent years, bucking the trend of paying the GDP of small countries to buy superstars.
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He learned how to do more with less – because there is no other choice. What did a film guy know about soccer? A lot, as it turned out.ĭe Laurentiis broke all the rules in rebuilding the team. At first, Neapolitans, a notoriously cynical though outgoing crowd, were non-believers.
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That year, an unlikely soccer fanatic, movie mogul Aurelio De Laurentiis, the nephew of famed Italian film producer Dino De Laurentiis, formed a new company to rescue Napoli. It was relegated to Serie B, then Serie C, and was declared bankrupt in 2004. One of the hottest, most glamorous teams in Europe fell apart quickly. Napoli’s decline began even before Maradona left the team in disgrace in 1992 – he had served a 15-month ban for failing a cocaine drug test.
In spite of Napoli’s non-victory on Sunday, the team has already been hailed as one of the greatest comeback stories in the history of European soccer. “We were ready for the biggest party since Maradona.” Open this photo in gallery: “I am so sad,” said Loredana Esposito, a fanatic Napoli fan who works in a clothing store. The game ended in a tie, which, mathematically speaking, was not enough for Naples to clinch the Scudetto, as the Serie A title is known. But Salernitana’s defence was formidable and the southern Italian team equalized with six minutes to go in regular time. Knots of Neapolitans watching the game on street screens roared when Napoli scored midway through the second half – victory seemed assured. In the midafternoon, when the game started, the smell of cooked fish still lingered in the air, the horns blared, and smoke from blue flares filled the streets. That meant fish, the traditional festive meal in Naples, and copious amounts of Greco di Tufo and other varieties of crisp white local wines.
Families got together before the afternoon Napoli-Salernitana game at the Diego Armando Maradona Stadium for a celebratory lunch.
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