If there's one place outside Argentina that will likely match — or possibly even exceed — the outpouring of mourning for Diego Maradona, it's in Naples.
While Maradona was revered around the world as perhaps the greatest soccer player ever, in Naples he was more than that.
Maradona was treated as a deity for the way he led Napoli to its only two Serie A titles — in 1987 and 1990 — and raised the spirits of the southern Italian city, which remains far removed both geographically and socio-economically from the country's soccer capitals of Milan and Turin.
"Maradona wasn't just a player. He represented the spirit of Napoli for years," said former Napoli president Corrado Ferlaino, who owned the club when Maradona played there.
Maradona's spokesman, Sebastián Sanchi, said he died Wednesday of a heart attack at the age of 60, two weeks after being released from a hospital in Buenos Aires following brain surgery.
Upon hearing the news, thousands of Neapolitans poured out into the city's streets to honor Maradona and light candles in his memory — even though gatherings are banned because the city lies in a coronavirus red zone. Many of them stood below huge murals of their hero that cover entire sides of downtown buildings.
"It's so emotional that you can't say it with words, you can't explain it," said one local resident, Francesco Errico. "He gave us so much. He made us experience mind-blowing emotions."
Naples Mayor Luigi De Magistris immediately proposed that the city's San Paolo Stadium be renamed for Maradona — and ordered the stadium's lights be turned on all night even though there was no game being played there.
