Spalletti managed to unite all the souls of Naples

Half believe. For them this Scudetto is the fulfillment of a miracle, the touch of divine grace on a team, a city, a people. It was the hand of god, they say. Then there’s the thinking half. And it’s made of match analyst, of men of science, of engineers of tactics. Who is right: faith or science? And is Luciano Spalletti a prophet or not? An adequate synthesis of this Naples will never be accomplished because the dialectic involves too many nuances. Not only is our era made to have more positions, more points of view, it is the very nature of Naples that is multifaceted. On the other hand it was Marcello Mastroianni, a sensitive artist who was not from Naples, who defined this place kissed by the sun and nostalgia as “too special”: “Naples not everyone can understand”. It is within this complexity that Spalletti has inserted himself, skilfully frontman and shrewd, prepared, meticulous coach. It is he who gave an organic form to the primordial chaos.

This is also why so many exegetes of the Tuscan coach were born. The Aiapc (Italian Association of Football Performance Analysts) has done several studies on Spalletti’s game. In one of the latest extraordinary reports, for example, you can read pages and pages of analysis. “The game develops mainly on the flanks with triangulations between the full-back, the midfielder and the full-back”. “A constant that we always find in Napoli’s actions is the overlap of the full-backs”. “Napoli always tries to direct the attacking action towards the side where it creates greater density”. It is a technical, specialized language that welcomes the adepts and discourages the sentimental. But that demonstrates how much Spalletti’s work has influenced (and certainly not from the experience under Vesuvius) tacticians and organization enthusiasts. Strange, however, how opposite positions can coexist. The Napolista spoke of Spalletti who “wins hands down because he is the antithesis of tactical dogmatism”. And again: “The unpredictability of Napoli that stuns their opponents by forcing them to bolt is the result of at least three choices”. Which are all about freedom: no one is a prisoner of ball possession, more dribbling and technical gestures, tactical autonomy.

How can a team be free and rigid at the same time? Rest assured: they are all right. And in the end this is the beauty of it. Naples continues to be the city of improvisation, of loves on the wall, the one that wakes up at night and dozes off during the day; it is the city of melò, of children on the street, the same city that stopped suddenly in the 1980s, like in a still image, to better enjoy the Maradona show (we always return there) just like in Sorrentino’s film. That Naples was based on the imagination, winning between contradictions and flashes of class. Perfect for the city of poets, cultured intellectuals, prestigious universities, and those who want to sing, dream and make cinema. Sure, a city that made theupgrade of contemporary pains, with the lack of work, with the difficulties of young people, the fears at the low wall (not just loves), the gap between rich and poor that is becoming ever wider and more unfair. “It’s not a city: it’s a world”, Curzio Malaparte defined it. Ancient and pre-Christian, “remained intact on the surface of the modern world”.

It was therefore Spalletti who united all these souls, new and old, and gave them an organic and organized form. Giving a cut to victimhood. “Complaining is lame,” he once said. Introducing the epic. To the point that certain sentences will remain engraved in the great story of future generations. Like: “Strong men, strong destinies. Weak men, weak destinies. There is no other way”. Spalletti has added substance to dreams, which are evanescent by definition. He put everything together in modules and strategies. Napoli’s numbers speak of the best attack, of the team with the best ball possession, which has won the most, which has made the most assists, the most shots (after Inter). And even if he never said it, mister Luciano is perfectly fine for that joke, which is now a cult, to shout at those who thought they couldn’t make it this time either: “Naples, don’t disunite yourself”.