One day suddenly, Vesuvius will erupt, and fire will wash this city of (expletive). Cholera and salmonella, but you are still here. What is the epidemic, that will annihilate you. Ale ale ale, Vesuvio ale ale. ~ A coarse spoof of the Napoli anthem “Un giorno all’improvviso” sung by A.S. Roma fans*
My Napoli scarf with the coat-of-arms
of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies
Jeered by a passerby the other day for wearing my S.S.C. Napoli scarf, I was reminded of a dicey incident that took place during my last trip to Italy. While sporting a Napoli shirt in a rival city, I was warned by a concerned stranger that I was offending some locals and it was a potentially dangerous situation. Alone in a foreign country, I found it prudent to heed his advice and leave the premises before things got out of control. But that was in la Bel Paese (the beautiful country), where they live and breath calcio (Italian football), not New York City.
Unlike the heated arguments we regularly get into over local sports affiliations, I don’t ever recall getting into a row with someone here (friends aside) for being a Napoli supporter. In fact, thanks to their impressive style of play, rooting for Napoli has become somewhat fashionable these days, with many a frontrunner singing the current team’s praises. Far from getting upset by the encounter (after all, “suffering” for the team is a badge of honor and comes with the territory), the antagonist and I exchanged a few verbal barbs before parting ways.
Oddly enough, I was not altogether unsympathetic with my adversary, who took umbrage with me following a foreign team and not supporting Major League Soccer (MLS). However, in my defense I was rooting for Napoli long before there was a MLS and, at the risk of sounding “un-American,” I feel more kindred to the city of Naples on a visceral level than I do to my own hometown, which becomes more and more unrecognizable to me with each passing day.
Back in 1997 and ’98 I did attend a few NY/NJ MetroStars (now NY Red Bulls) games at Giants Stadium in the Meadowlands, but remained altogether unimpressed with MLS. While fans of the league have accused me of being a “football snob,” the truth of the matter is I’m fervently loyal to Napoli and the only homegrown team I would even consider following is the New York Cosmos, who I watched play as a child. As an aside, the revived Cosmos under Calabrese American cable magnate Rocco B. Commisso, along with ten other clubs, are currently affiliated with the National Premier Soccer League (NPSL) and are set to debut in the spring of 2020.
I was first introduced to calcio in high school, thanks to my new friends who were the children of immigrants from southern Italy, mostly Sicily. Being Neapolitan American, I instinctively started rooting for Napoli, while my classmates were all oddly diehard fans of northern Italian teams like Juventus, A.C. Milan and Inter Milan. Naturally, with such passionate and knowledgeable (tor)mentors, it didn’t take long for me to learn the intricacies of the game and adopt the historical rivalries. The regional pride and identity connected to the team's fanbase were well suited to my nascent Neobourbon political views.
The lone Napoli supporter in the bunch, my team and I were incessantly poked fun of, especially in the ’90s when the club began to decline. Since my friends are southerners themselves, the banter never reached, even during our most intense exchanges, the egregious levels of “territorial discrimination” we witness today in the terraces in Italy. For example, opposing ultras (fanatical fans) from the north often cheer on Mount Etna and Mount Vesuvius in the hopes that the two potentially dangerous volcanoes will erupt and wipe southern Italy off the face of the planet.
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| A crude meme, curiously circulated in English |
As to be expected from tifosi (fans) of winning teams, my friends count silverware and Scudetti (championships), while I take solace in knowing that through thick and thin I remain loyal to the team that represents the city I carry in my heart. Their respective clubs—Juventus, Milan and Inter—won a combined 24 out of the last 28 titles since Napoli last finished top of Serie A in 1989/90. U.C. Sampdoria, S.S. Lazio and A.S. Roma each won once, while in 2004/05 the Scudetto wasn’t awarded after first place Juventus and runners up Milan (among others) were implemented in the notorious match-fixing scandal known as Calciopoli.
Napoli’s ascendancy, as well as being the sole representative of the south in the ongoing 2018/19 Serie A campaign, has been a source of pride. The team looks strong and expectations are high. Though not without criticism, owner and prominent movie mogul Aurelio De Laurentis and his war room have built a team worthy of the city. Not since the glorious Diego Maradona years (1984–1992) has there been so much optimism and belief in the Scudetto.
All said, in the end all that matters is that the lads respect the shirt and give it their all on the pitch. More than just a game, calcio is, as the cliché says, “a way of life.” It is a mentality; a culture imbued with ardor and élan. One's regional pride and dignity are at stake. It may be considered “backwards” and “dangerous” by the governing bodies trying to sanitize, monetize and globalize the sport, where each team and fan base become cookie cutter copies of one another, except with different colored uniforms, but they are learning that for some of us old loyalties die hard. Forza Napoli sempre!
All said, in the end all that matters is that the lads respect the shirt and give it their all on the pitch. More than just a game, calcio is, as the cliché says, “a way of life.” It is a mentality; a culture imbued with ardor and élan. One's regional pride and dignity are at stake. It may be considered “backwards” and “dangerous” by the governing bodies trying to sanitize, monetize and globalize the sport, where each team and fan base become cookie cutter copies of one another, except with different colored uniforms, but they are learning that for some of us old loyalties die hard. Forza Napoli sempre!
One day suddenly, I fell in love with you. My heart was beating, don’t ask me why. Time has passed, but we are still here, and now as then, I defend the city. Ale ale ale, Ale ale ale. ~ One day suddenly (Un giorno all’improvviso)
* Quoted from http://www.italianfootballdaily.com/offensive-chants-from-roma-fans-towards-the-city-of-napoli/
