The Friulian Scudetto party of Napoli

On the eve of the match between Udinese and Napoli at the Stadio Friuli Dacia Arena on Thursday evening, which handed Naples the third Scudetto in its historythe greatest concern were the celebrations, that is, essentially where the Azzurri fans would have celebrated a possible championship, for how long, and above all in what way.

Outside the stadium and along the connecting roads with the city, in the area of ​​the historic center and in the area of ​​the Là di Moret hotel, north of the city, a security device was set up the day before, made up of at least several hundred agents police and carabinieri, including several squads in riot gear, and a helicopter that constantly flew over the stadium area to prevent clashes between the two fans, which have already occurred in the past. The “Curva nord Udinese 1896” group had communicated in recent days that it “does not like celebrations of any kind”, just as it had not been allowed to other top clubs in the past, they had said. Udine prefect Massimo Marchesiello, who in his declarations on the eve of the match had also expressed personal satisfaction, as a fan, for Napoli’s victory in the city, said he hoped there would be “only a party and not clashes between the two fans” . In general, the climate was cautiously tense and wary.

There have been clashes, but on the pitch.

At the final whistle, despite the prefect Marchesiello himself having explicitly asked to avoid pitch invasions which would have greatly complicated the procedures for maintaining order inside the stadium, a large number of Napoli fans from all over the southern area of ​​the stadium (yours, the south curve, the grandstand and the away sector) invaded the pitch to reach their players or tear up clods of the field (today they are also available for sale online).

Some of them have reached the field area which is exactly in front of the northern curve, occupied by Friulian fans. At that point a small group of Friulian ultras, hitherto within their own sector, in turn invaded the field in response to the provocative and denigrating gestures of the Azzurri fans and attacked them, causing them to “flee” towards the stands of Napoli fans. What one believed or hoped to have averted eventually happened, albeit to a limited extent, as there were no major clashes outside the stadium.

The Friuli stadium was largely occupied by Azzurri fans, the figures discussed on the eve of the event ranged between 11,000 and 15,000 people, many residing in Friuli-Venezia Giulia or arriving for the occasion from not far away. Victor Oshimen, when he scored the equalizer, cheered from a completely different side than where the away sector was, where there was the hottest supporter of Napoli, but in any case the sector he headed towards was entirely blue.

Already from the evening before the match, waiting for the bus to arrive at the hotel where the players had to stay overnight, several hundred people who, between one chorus and another, took into account the result of the Lazio match against Sassuolo, hoping for a victory Sarri’s team that would have given the Scudetto “on the field” to Udine. Many were the same age as their children, born and raised in Friuli, when Napoli won their last Scudetto in 1990 and it is the first thing they say when answering our questions.

There are many roads that cross between Udine and Naples. In the city we meet a boy with Meret’s shirt, one of the many in this Naples that we have noticed now and that will be talked about a lot. Alex Meret is a Friulian in Naples, a not at all extroverted player who has suffered a lot of criticism in past years, in a non-winning Naples, and is now a “silent hero”, a 100 percent Friulian characteristic. This boy tells us he is very happy that Meret wins his first Scudetto – presuming there will be others – right in Udine, half an hour from his home, Flambruzzo, in the so-called “lower Friuli region”. Another converging road is Piotr Zieliński, which was already there in 2018 and lost 3-0 in Florence. He made his debut for Udinese and the fans remember his debut as a starter in Parma, where he surprised everyone a bit and made the assist for Muriel’s goal.

There weren’t many Neapolitan fans in the city center in the pre-match afternoon, some in obvious blue, others in civilian clothes. Therefore, the tense climate that one would have felt near the stadium and which one read about in the pages of the local newspaper, Il Messaggero Veneto, did not breathe.

Many fans have organized their trip even before knowing the result of last week’s match against Salernitana, choosing Udine as the destination for the celebrations, which even if the mathematical certainty of the Scudetto had arrived last Sunday, would probably have lasted for the following six games .

For many, almost all, Napoli’s victory is above all a personal victory. We met three “boys” of forty each, Neapolitans in civilian clothes, who live and work here. One of them supports Juventus, another tells us he’s the same age – 41 – who had his father when Napoli won their last scudetto, and therefore it was destiny to win it here. Many businesses, especially in the catering sector, are “Neapolitan” in Udine, including a rather well-known pizzeria that has been letting blue smoke out of its fireplace since Wednesday evening. In general everyone we meet has a story and a reason in itself why it was destined to win it in Udine, and perhaps it would have been the same for other cities but it is not known. And yet, even if we don’t want to believe the superstition, more than one points out to us that Napoli, Italy’s culturally Argentinian team, won its third Scudetto at the Dacia Arena, in Piazzale Repubblica Argentina number 3.

The celebrations then continued for several hours outside the stadium, in the Curva Sud area, and some groups of fans also reached the city centre.