«We are back playing in the streets» Interview with Paolo Cannavaro A rebith as beautiful as Piazza del Gesù and the Maradona Stadium

Among the cultural phenomena through which a city and a people can regain prestige and impulse, even looking at them from the outside, there are the works of creative minds, but also collective manifestations that huddle around icons, which become totems of belonging. Football is among these forms of collective expression, capable in Naples as in very few places in the world of producing epic moments of joy, which reached their zenith with the celebration of the third Scudetto. If Naples is experiencing a golden moment culturally, football is playing a fundamental role in this journey, which began symbolically almost twenty years ago thanks to a generation of footballers to which Paolo Cannavaro belonged, captain of the first blue trophy won after 22 years and, as a Neapolitan, a keen observer of all that football has given and continues to give to the city.

“The most beautiful thing that that moment brought to Naples is having allowed children to return to play in the streets wearing Napoli shirts. In those years there were many conversions of faith, now the team is back in the center of the city.”

“Naples is experiencing a golden moment, and as often happens football manages to give the accent, to underline what is already there,” says Paolo Cannavaro, pointing out how basically what we see now has always been there for all to see. “Naples is beautiful and always has been, the great artists Naples has always produced but in recent years the team that gives an extra touch has been missing. All this helps to stop thinking of Naples as a city full of problems, and football is part of this cultural change, this is the thing that makes me most proud." It is only natural that with an ex-footballer of the level of Paolo Cannavaro, a captain by nature, the view of the city is filtered through the lens of football, which for the former defender also has a responsibility towards Naples, just like every aspect of culture. “It is we Neapolitans who are feeling this change first hand, we are seeing it and it is not taken for granted, the tourists then perceive it even more as a reflection, it is a beautiful victory for Naples but now we hope that the institutions will also play their part”.

Football has always meant so much to the city of Naples, you only have to look at the photos of Maradona's Scudetto celebration to recognize many similarities with those taken in the streets of the city after the third tricolor. Due to the poor results of the late 1990s and early 2000s, with the corporate crisis of 2004, for a few seasons, it was as if the city had gone through a giddy void, with breath held until the return to Serie A in the 2006/2007 season, when one of the great protagonists was Paolo Cannavaro himself: “That season was the rebirth, it was only a Serie B championship but looking at it today it was really a rebirth.” The breath held has become a cry again and the rebirth Cannavaro talks about is that of the city's sense of belonging around the team. “The most beautiful thing that that moment brought to Naples is having allowed kids to go back to playing in the streets in Napoli shirts. In those years there were many conversions of faith, now children cheer Napoli and play with the jerseys of their idols, the team is back at the center of the city.”

Serie A for Napoli was the rebirth, the beginning of the curve that started a circle that for Paolo Cannavaro has not yet been closed, not even with the Scudetto win. One of the moments to which he is most attached, however, is the Coppa Italia raised as captain on 20 May 2012, more than 20 years after Napoli's last trophy. Again, it is necessary to think of that success for the team as a moment in the city's journey of rebirth, to which Cannavaro gives the title of 'joy', capable of defining a sense of awareness and revenge that has been completely rediscovered: “the victory over Juventus was the way to say that we were on our way and that we had become aware of the fact that if the others wanted to win they would have to wait for us sooner or later. That Juve was strong and after winning the Scudetto a few days earlier they had waited to celebrate, thinking they could do it together with the Coppa Italia. It was a way of saying that we were there”.

Since then came many seasons in the Champions League, championships always at the top, and champions who made the European big names dream, who left Naples without ever really forgetting it. What Napoli football has managed to do in the last fifteen years is precisely to have made the Neapolitan spirit felt outside, “this is thanks to Campania players like myself and Grava for example, who dragged everyone along, establishing a strong bond with the city and with a fan base that was more skeptical and difficult to drag along than it is today, this too has been an achievement and the symbol of a rebirth”. In this process of growth, it was fundamental to have started step by step, with a group that Cannavaro defines as "a band of crazy people who didn't know what they were going to do around", understanding how it took that spirit to conquer everything little by little, from Serie A to the debut in the Champions League, playing in the group rounds with Manchester City, Bayern Munich and Villarreal, losing only to Chelsea, then winners of the cup. 

For Paolo Cannavaro, Napoli is a pact between the city and that desire to narrow the gap between present and future, between expectations and reality, it is a circle that never closes, “as beautiful as Piazza del Gesù and the Maradona Stadium seen from the neighborhood where I grew up, every time is a special emotion”.

Photographer Carmine Romano 
Stylist Roberta Astarita 
Photographer Assistants Luca Tarricone, Matteo Sagliocco 
Stylist Assistant Beatrice Pretto 
Interview Tommaso Berra
Special thanks to Lello Esposito.