The Southern Apennine Youth Army with Passion and Dreams: Naples

Società Sportiva Calcio Napoli is a football club located in the famous southern Italian city of Naples. It was founded in 1904 and is one of the few southern powerhouses in the Italian Serie A league. Its home ground is the Diego Armando Maradona Stadium.

Team history: 

Napoli Football Club was founded in 1904 by a group of British sailors. In 1912, foreign players split off to form the International Naples Club. In 1926, the two clubs merged again to form the current Napoli Football Club, which has always been in the middle and lower reaches of Serie A. In 1984, Maradona joined Napoli and created the most glorious era in the club’s history. Maradona’s No. 10 jersey was also retired by Napoli Football Club.

In 2004, the club declared bankruptcy and was relegated to the Italian football third division. In the 2006-2007 season, Napoli Football Club played in Serie B and finally returned to Serie A with a second-place finish. They also qualified for the UEFA Cup in the following season.

The club was originally named Naples Foot-Ball & Cricket Club when it was established. In 1904, a British sailor named William Perth and his partner Hackett M. Baynham joined a few Neapolitans, including Amadeo Salsi, who became the club’s first chairman, to create the club. The original team’s jersey was a blue and navy blue striped shirt, and the shorts were black. In 1906, the club changed its name to Naples Football Club.

In the early days of the club’s establishment, the Italian league was limited to clubs in the north, and southern teams could only play against nearby amateur teams composed of sailors or participate in cup competitions such as the Sir Thomas Lipton’s Lipton Challenge Cup. During this period, Napoli won the final three times, defeating the current Palermo team.

Napoli broke the world football transfer fee record by signing Maradona in 1984. The team quickly returned to the top of the Serie A rankings. In the 1985-1986 season, the team achieved a historic achievement by winning third place in the league. However, in the 1986-1987 season, Napoli’s performance improved further. They finally won the Serie A championship with a 3-point lead over the second place, and won the double crown by defeating Atalanta4-0 in the final of the Italian Cup.

Since the southern region of Italy (the region on the Apennine Peninsula) has never won the championship of the top Italian league, Maradona has become a cultural symbol of the local area and a “symbol” of the entire Naples region. For Neapolitans, this meaning even surpasses the meaning of football. In 1991, after Maradona left, the No. 10 jersey that symbolized Maradona and Napoli was also retired.

Team honors:

· 2 Serie A championships 

· 6 Coppa Italia championships 

· 2 Supercoppa Italiana championships 

· 1 UEFA Cup championship