Parents, children and grandparents: all Naples came out of procession to greet Diego Maradona

Dario Del Porto

11/27/2020 11:09

• Clarín.com

• sports

Updated 11/27/2020 12:06

In the city of God, which always lost before him and was only able to win thanks to him, Diego Armando Maradona's farewell spans

, he moves from one end of the metropolis to another, passes in front of monuments, walks along the alleys of the old town and also melts the great cold caused by the pandemic.

After a night without rest, Naples

to greet not only the God of the Ball but also a symbol.

The man who fought against his demons and the leader who carried an entire people on his shoulders.

"The magician of the sphere. Rebel and victorious. Victim of drugs, tried, envied, hated, but always loved by us", it reads next to a bouquet of blue flowers stretched out in front of the San Paolo stadium that will soon bear his name, where a small crowd gathers that increases as the hours go by.

There is no measure of distancing that they maintain.

If it weren't for the masks it wouldn't look like a "red zone".

They don't just wave the flags of the fans.

There are young and less young.

Those who have seen Maradona and those who have only heard of him.

Parents with children who are still children and children with older parents.

Someone turns on a light, someone places a red rose, someone leaves a poem.

Torches in the Piazza del Plebiscito.

Photo: AFP

"Maradona has deeply influenced my generation, not only from a football point of view but also from a human and social point of view. The Neapolitan people identified with him because, together with the greatness of the footballer, he combined the normality of man with

It was a reason for revenge and redemption. And that is why a whole city will remember him forever ", says Guido Iaccarino, a 44-year-old lawyer who wears the shirt of the first Italian championship that Napoli won, the first scudetto, and a mask with the club's crest.

He is with his father, Luigi, who not without emotion says: "I remember all the past Sundays on the field. It was enough to see him come out onto the field of play from the locker room,

applauding his very presence. Not to mention the wonders he was able to do with the ball on his foot. I always told my son: 'You're not going to see a champion like that again.'

A little further on, sitting on a horse on her father's shoulders, a six-year-old girl, dressed in Maradona's blue number 10 shirt, looks curiously at those people who pay tribute to the footballer who died at age sixty on the other side of the world.

Sails for Diego, in Naples.

Photo: AFP

"I brought her because I wanted her to breathe

at her age. That sense of belonging and social redemption that Maradona has transmitted to the Neapolitans and that he leaves us forever", explains Giuseppe Nappo, an employee of the Jabil company.

And he adds: "The 80s were difficult for Naples. They only talked about stories of evil and the brawl. Thanks to Diego, once a week we took

. He was not only the best footballer of all time. He was the man who took charge of the malaise of an entire city. "

Another man, who calls himself "Bracy 10", does not hold back his tears as he arranges a bouquet of flowers: "Even today there are those who offend Naples by shouting that we wash ourselves with the fire of Vesuvius. I believe that now the tears of the Neapolitans have put out that fire. "

In the eastern suburb of San Giovanni a Teduccio, a young woman in her early twenties approaches one of the murals dedicated to the

and collects herself in prayer.

His name is Carmen Velotto: "I have never seen Maradona play, but I got to know him thanks to my father's stories and I feel him very close from the human point of view. This is true, I think, for all Neapolitans: we reflect on him, in what it has been and in the sense of belonging that it has transmitted to us ".

People leave scarves and flowers, and light candles on a makeshift altar to Diego.

Photo: dpa

At night, the fans parade in procession to the Royal Palace, in the heart of the city, to remember Diego "as a true

".

On Carrer dei Presepi in the historic center of San Gregorio Armeno, where shops and businesses are closed due to the coronavirus, master craftsman Genny Di Virgilio

the former footballer

, as a protective angel of the city.

In the heart of the Quartieri Spagnoli sector there is another mural;

there, as admits Don Mario Ziello, parish priest of the church of Santa María del Carmine alla Concordia, "for hours

. It was a real blow for our city, revived by a great soccer player but with great contradictions."

Flags, scarves and images of Maradona are everywhere, from the main door of the Filangieri museum to the streets of downtown.

In front of the medieval castle Maschio Angioino you can see a banner and even on the roofs of the convent of the cloistered nuns Clarisse Cappuccine there is a flag.

In the Fuorigrotta neighborhood, an anonymous hand has left an inscription on the asphalt: "What a tarantella, Diego. You were too alive to imagine yourself dead."

Maradona and Naples.

Naples and Maradona.

.

Translation: Román García Azcárate

ap

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