NEOPOLITAN WELCOME 

                   When I got to Napoli I had zero cash... And debts.
                   In ’79 while I was still at Argentinos, Napoli had come over to headhunt me...
                   They’d even sent a shirt to the hotel where the team was staying with a letter
                   saying they were hoping the borders would be opened for foreigners so they
                   could take me back with them.

                   There’s something I’ve never talked about in detail. We needed a good
                   business deal ’cause Cyterzspiler had slipped up with the numbers and we
                   were down to zero. You bet. Broke.

                   The day of the presentation 80,000 Neapolitans went to the San Paolo just to
                   see me!

                   It was Thursday 5 July 1984. The only thing I said to them was what I’d been
                   taught. “Buona sera, napolitani. Sono molto felice di essere con voi...” and I
                   booted the ball into the stands. The crowd went crazy. It blew my mind.

                   In the first round of the ’84-’85 championship we got nine points. Nine poxy
                   points! And I went off to spend Christmas and New Year in Buenos Aires with
                   my tail between my legs. When I went back, we had to start all over again for
                   the second half of the Italian championship. It was so damn cold. On 6
                   January, Twelfth Night, we went to play Udinese, who had eight points and
                   were fighting us in the relegation battle... It was a bloody second division
                   game. Talk about desperate! But we beat them 4-3.

                   After New Year, we got more points than Verona who won the league. We took
                   24 points and them 22. We were knocked out of the UEFA Cup by just 2
                   points. I scored 14 goals and came third in the table of goalscorers 4 behind
                   Platini...

                   Feeling full of myself I squared up to the club chairman, Corrado Ferlaino and
                   told him, “buy three or four players and sell the players the crowds are
                   whistling. That’s got to be your barometer. When I give someone the ball and
                   the crowd whistles... Ciao. If you don’t, then think about selling me ’cause me
                   I’m not staying with things like this. Buy me a couple of players. Get me
                   Renica from Sampdoria and play him as number three. He’ll make a brilliant
                   sweeper.” And we gradually built the team up from there.

                   The second season,’85-’86, we qualified for the UEFA Cup and finished third
                   six points behind Juve who won the scudetto.

                   The manager by then was Bianchi, Ottavio Bianchi... Oh come on. We were the
                   real managers. I didn’t like him from the word go. He was a hard man. He didn’t
                   seem to have the Latin temperament. German more like. You couldn’t beat a
                   smile out of him with a stick. He wasn’t too much of a pain with me though,
                   ’cause he knew whenever he came down on me I’d just leave him shooting his
                   mouth off. He was an authoritarian but was quite considerate with me. He once
                   said to me:
                   “There’s this exercise I want you to do.”
                   “Which one?”
                   “I throw the ball and you have to hit the floor and sweep it up with your left
                   then your right.”
                   “I’m not doing that, I’m not hitting any floor... It’s the opposition’s job to try
                   and knock me to the floor...”
                   “Right, so we’re going to have problems all year.”
                   “Right, and you’re going to have to go.”

                   In ’86-’87 everything we’d been preparing for finally came together with a
                   bang. On top of everything I’d just won my World Cup medal with Argentina in
                   Mexico. There was nothing I could wish for. Not a thing...

                   Getting the first scudetto for Napoli in sixty years was the ultimate victory for
                   me, different from all the others, even the ’86 World title with my country.
                   Because at Napoli we did it as the underdogs. We were real workers. I’d have
                   liked everyone to have seen the way we celebrated. What a party! A scudetto
                   for the whole city. And the people started learning that you needn’t be afraid,
                   that it wasn’t the team with the most money that won but the one who fought
                   the hardest, the one wanted it the most...

                   But the trouble was... What was the trouble? The trouble was the directors at
                   Napoli didn’t want to hear anything about spending their hard earned cash.
                   And on top of the scudetto for the Champions Cup we were on the verge of
                   putting Real Madrid out. We had to play the away leg behind closed doors at
                   the Bernabeu and for the return leg people went mad. It felt like all the
                   Neapolitans in the world wanted to be at the San Paolo. We collected four
                   million dollars (counting resales and everything, in the best Neapolitan style,
                   it would have been more like seven or eight) but the club didn’t use them and
                   we missed our big chance to make Napoli a truly great, great club... They
                   wouldn’t even change the grass on our training pitch out in Soccavo.
 

~Chapter 10

Chapters Index~

Chapter12~