Napoli’s winners came home on Friday after winning their first Serie A title in 33 years. They were met by hundreds of ecstatic supporters at their training camp following a rowdy night of celebrating in Naples.
Excited fans went crazy when they saw the players’ white bus coming to the team’s training center at Castel Volturno, which is located to the northwest of Naples. They waved blue-and-white flags, sang songs, and honked horns as they welcomed the players back.
The returning heroes who won Napoli its third Scudetto in its history came by plane from Udine at the neighboring Grazzanise Air Base, where fans wearing T-shirts that said “Champions of Italy” were also present to meet them. Thursday night’s victory gave Napoli its third Scudetto in the club’s history.
The rowdy celebrations are expected to continue over the weekend, at least up to Napoli’s next home match, which is scheduled to take place on Sunday evening against Fiorentina. Celebrations for Napoli winning their first Serie A championship in over three decades had lasted practically all night and into the early morning hours of the following day, thus the city of Naples remained ecstatic throughout the day.
The night was filled with the sounds of people celebrating, chanting, setting off firecrackers and fireworks, automobiles and scooters blasting their horns, and the passengers on these vehicles waving flags and banners.
However, in the midst of the festivities, hundreds of people were injured and one man was killed by gunshot wounds in what Mayor Gaetano Manfredi described as “a settling of scores” that had nothing to do with the celebrations.
Napoli’s 1-1 draw against Udinese on Thursday evening was enough for Luciano Spalletti’s squad to clinch the title of champions of Italy. This is the club’s first Scudetto since Diego Maradona was the team’s captain and guided them to victory in 1987 and 1990.
Napoli had built up an increasingly unassailable advantage over their nearest opponents, Lazio, over the course of several weeks, and fans had been getting ready to rejoice for weeks.