Benvenuto a Maradona!
We thought we’d take a trip back in time to when Diego Armando Maradona washed up at Napoli in the summer of 1984 without a penny to his name, with ambitious president Corrado Ferlaino forking out a then-world record fee of £6.9million to bring in ‘El Pibe de Oro’ (The Golden Boy) in from Barcelona.
The Press Association archives have some great shots of Maradona’s first few days in Italy…
Diego Maradona is mobbed by excited fans after arriving at Leonardo da Vinci airport in Rome having signed for Napoli next season, July 24th, 1984
Maradona trains in Napoli colours for the first time at the club’s pre-season training camp in Castel del Piano, a mountain resort in central Italy, July 25th, 1984
Maradona is followed by a young fan wearing a t-shirt with the Argentinian soccer star’s face on it during a mountain walk at Castel del Piano, July 25th, 1984
The Napoli squad do laps of the pitch with Maradona front and centre, July 27th, 1984
Having returned to Naples following the culmination of the squad’s training programme, Maradona was finally formally welcomed to the Stadio San Paolo in front of around 70,000 Partenopei fans.
Here’s Diego being officially introduced to the curva for the very first time on July 6th, 1984…
And here’s the effortlessly exquisite free-kick Maradona casually popped in off the post at his presentation…
Here’s highlights from his Napoli debut in a game against Fiorentina a few months later…
And while this classic clip came several years later still, it’d be utterly remiss of us not to include it here – El Diego warming up rhythmically before a game in 1988/89, juggling the ball in time with the music as Falco blarts out “Life is Life” in the background…
Never gets old.
(Image via Up And Down)