The Bernabéu tie this week has rekindled memories of the occasion when one of Real Madrid’s finest sides met a Napoli inspired by Diego Maradona
The teams are in and Diego Maradona will be leading Napoli in Madrid. He touched down at Barajas airport on Monday and took refuge in his hotel – the same hotel Real Madrid use when they are brought together the night before home games – from where he will head to the Santiago Bernabéu on Wednesday night, invited by the Napoli president Aurelio de Laurentiis. Thousands of Neapolitans will be there too, high in the north stand. The ones who get tickets, anyway. The sports newspaper AS said on its front-page: “10,000, plus Maradona”. Marca warned on its cover: “Don’t get overconfident, even Maradona’s coming”.
He has been here with Napoli just once before. They might not get much of a glimpse of him; but not many saw him back then, either. It is 30 years ago now. September 1987: Napoli against Real Madrid in the European Cup first round, a game played behind closed doors with barely 200 people in the stadium after a ban was imposed because of trouble the previous season. If it feels like Maradona dominates the build-up to this game, he dominated the build-up to that game more. It is just that as it turned out, the game itself was a different matter.
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