the city sings of its love (and Sorrentino films) – Corriere.it

FROM OUR REPORTER
NAPLES – necessary deliver your soul to this city and abandon yourselfimmerse yourself in the madness that spreads under the flashes of fireworks, the gulf lit up by day, a throbbing happiness of the people who have now descended into the streets and squares, the elderly on the balconies, the children on the shoulders of the fathers, Diego who is up there , tonight, clearly much more than a star.

Watch: really hard to explain what is going on here
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There is no story possible.

There are only images and noises, the tears of those who have stubbornly waited 33 years and the exhausted hugs of those returning from that place of hope that has become the stadium connected in streaming with Udine, the scent of fried pizza in via Speranzella, in the Quartieri, and the acrid smell of the blue smoke bombs, the sirens of the ferries and the band of Putip, Triccheballacche and Scetavajasse who follow an elderly pazzariello into the bedlam of Piazza Plebiscito, the immigrants who with their drums unleash stupendous tarantellas and the amazement of the tourists who have come on a pilgrimage on the trail of Elena Ferrante, the mask of Pulcinella and that of Osimhenthe evocation of beloved ghosts of Massimo Troisi and Pino Daniele and the alleys where Napule shoot at full volume, the Neapolitan carabinieri singing ‘O surdato ‘nnammurato together with the fans and Edoardo Bennato who, having returned early from the United States, carries the blow-ups of the Italian champions in procession through via Toledo with flags and those who go to thank San Gennaro, the rich of Vomero who dance together with the poor of the Sanit, the waving crowd on Lungomare Caracciolo and the boys who dive into the sea, the seas outside and the places in the sun, the voice of Antonio Capuano who he asks Paolo Sorrentino if he has anything to tell e that genius of Sorrentino who is in fact filming everythingeverything that happened and happens, the team has never disunited and reality may not be cheap, in Naples: but full of beauty and strength, love and great truths.

Because at least one certain thing can be written: after decades, this is the first economically sustainable Italian championship in an increasingly ferocious and unfair football, which distorts balance sheets and remains on the verge of bankruptcy. President Aurelio De Laurentiis planned, organized, persevered. Lucid, sometimes cynical and ruthless, but honest and successful. He has been able to build slowly in a city that thrives on excitement and frenzy: starting from the C series, in 2004, and getting to set up a team that, this year, for long stretches of the season, seemed frankly perfect.

In Castel Di Sangro, last summer, Digos advised him not to go to the stadium to watch the friendly match. And the coach he had chosen to carry out the feat, Luciano Spalletti, had already had the Fiat Panda stolen: We’ll give it back to you, just go away. Restless city, so to speak. Too accustomed to the art of getting by and completely and immediately and then it shows, to imagine what the latest, sensational market could hide.

Go – suddenly – Insigne, Mertens, Koulibaly, Fabian Ruiz and Ghoulam; inside Kvaratskhelia (unknown), Kim (mocked: Kim, Camel and soft Marlboro: 3 packets, 10 euros), Ostigard, ndombl, Raspadori, Simeon And Olivera. There – also and above all – the hand of the sporting director Cristiano Giuntoli. Corrado Ferlaino, the last great president, needed that of God.

It is essential to bring up the strongest footballer ever to be able to win two championships: Maradonaa gifted, fragile and moving talent that an entire city still venerates and it is no coincidence that those who come to visit the city first go to see the mural dedicated to him, which has now become a place of pure worship, and then the Veiled Christ.

Meanwhile, news arrives from the Dacia Arena: dancing in the locker rooms and players uncorking sparkling wine, Spalletti watered and finally smiling, he who – at 64 years old and with over 550 benches on him – always has that bitter grin, that look a bit like that of a man in perennial struggle, torn apart by the electric shocks of a complex character to say the least and by certain tactical intuitions of furious charm, like an authentic football master.

A girl raises a Ceres and asks what Eduardo would say about all this. A friend remembers Tullio Pironti, the totem of Piazza Dante, the former boxer who became a publisher. But then we also remember Gianni Min, who has always been there at the parties of the last century. Scattered thoughts. No more walking. You can’t breathe anymore. You write with the laptop on the table of a bar in Santa Lucia, as they come in and ask for a coffee, and then another, and another, because no one has any intention of going to bed.

In the last few days, the New York Times. Who came up with this sentence: Naples is no longer a city with a football team. a football club with a city attached to it. It is complicated to establish, inside a blender of such strong emotions, how true the concept is: it will certainly be interesting to understand if the city, led by a gentleman of politics like the mayor Gaetano Manfredi (leave it alone, a Juventus fan, not evening), will be able to drag by the virtuous and triumphal example of football club. For real it can be an opportunity to try to go beyond Gomorrahhaving already torn up the postcards with the pizza and the mandolin.

Also because now everyone in the bar is starting to sing One day suddenly / I fell in love with you… .

And everybody jumps, and they hold hands. It is true that, sometimes, the happiness of others can be yours.

great to be here tonight.