Naples, Scudetto fever: the shirts hanging from the buildings, the Osimhen cake

The tide of Neapolitan enthusiasm rises slowly and inexorably. Game after game, the caterpillar assembled by Luciano Spalletti knows no stops in Italy and Europe and after 33 years of waiting, the blue people are savoring in small sips, for the moment, a great joy that will arrive in spring, sooner or later. Because, as some fans ironically underline: “If Napoli decided to stop for the period of Lent, they would still have at least a three-point advantage after Easter”. True, assuming five shifts are scheduled between now and the religious holiday. But the goals are quite different, to break record after record. And so week after week the first… celebrations multiply. We started with the flags already printed with the third championship. And the underground trade is hurriedly printing “commemorative” T-shirts.

IMAGINATION IN POWER

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And since Naples is the capital of genius and imagination, after the business selling Osimhen masks – at Carnival and beyond, and not just to children – the “Osimhen cake” has had over two thousand requests for the pastry shop of Chiaiano who “invented” this dark chocolate mousse with crumbled biscuits on top that recall the gold-colored curls of the top scorer and, of wafer, the inevitable mask that distinguishes the character.

THE RITE TO THE NEIGHBORHOODS

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By now it is normal in the stalls to find, in addition to the blue flags, the red and white flags of Georgia, homeland of the idol Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, with scheduled flights that now bring hundreds of Georgians to Naples every week. And in the meantime it has become a ritual for tourists and not just the tour of the Spanish Quarters. The heart is always in Largo Maradona, around the famous mural of the Argentine champion. But the marks on the protagonists of this splendid ride are growing all around. So you can find murals by Kim, Kvara, Di Lorenzo, Osimhen and others in the alleys, while on the staircase in vico Colonne in Cariati you can admire the full-size cartoons of the whole team with Spalletti giving directions and a pleasure-loving De Laurentiis alongside almost as if it were a Subbuteo team. And even on the laundry lines that pass from one building to another you will find the Napoli formation lined up with the 4-3-3 and the shirts of all the protagonists hanging like clothes in the right place. Healthy desire to enjoy this not even dreamy period (and not only for the Neapolitan fan but also for that of any team), waiting for the big day. For which the mayor Manfredi, breaking the clichés about superstition, has already announced that he will be in Piazza del Plebiscito complete with a giant screen. And meanwhile the tide rolls in.