Naples in mourning for legend of Napoli

A CRY goes up outside the San Paolo Stadium in Naples, where, since daybreak Thursday, tearful mourners have been lighting candles and leaving messages for football great Diego Maradona.

“Diego, Diego, Diego!” chants the crowd which gathered where scarfs and shirts in Napoli’s blue and white have been hung on the fence, transforming it into a makeshift shrine to the city’s adopted “king”.

“Hear our voices, hear our hearts,” shouts Rosario, 77, famed among fans as the stadium’s resident “poet”, as applause goes up and grown men in face masks in the team’s colours openly weep.

Buildings around the southern Italian city are adorned with depictions of the man who dragged Napoli to the top of the Italian game and became an icon for Neapolitans, whose chaotic city was feared and loathed by the rest of Italy.

Napoli’s players honoured their club legend by stepping out on to the pitch on Thursday evening wearing his No.10 jersey ahead of their Europa League match against Rijeka, which they won 2-0.

All wearing black armbands, the players observed a minute’s silence under a photo projected on a large screen in the empty stadium of the man who led Napoli to league titles in 1987 and 1990.

Maradona played for the then-unfashionable Napoli between 1984 and 1991, after joining following an unhappy spell at Spanish glamour club Barcelona. He also lifted the 1989 UEFA Cup, Napoli’s only European trophy. He was still Napoli’s record goalscorer until three years ago.