As our bus crossed a chaotic junction to enter a one way tunnel, still some way from the ground, I thought our chance of seeing the first half was slim. All the traffic of Naples seemed to be heading for the tunnel and the nominal 4 lanes was a haphazard mass of cars and scooters wedged together for as far as we could see. We had left the hostel in good time with its manager as our guide but had stood at a busy junction for ages, engrossed by traffic weaving at speed and the constant noise of horns and sirens.
Eventually a bus arrived and transported us into the tunnel vortex. We escaped by jumping off and catching a nearly empty train which took us direct to the stadium. Wendy shoved and I followed into the crowd by the turnstiles but such was our rush we only just avoided going in the section with the notorious hard core Napoli Ultras. We were in our seats at the top of the stand with 2 minutes to go but only after I had squeezed through the full height turnstile with another fan due to a ticket problem.
The feeling that this really is a crazy city was confirmed when the police helicopter, which had been swirling overhead, appeared above the roof behind one goal and flew the length of the pitch at a shockingly low height just before kick-off.
The San Paolo stadium has 2 tiers of seating which sweeps in an oval broken only by a net which descends from the roof to cage the 250 away fans, looks a little like a shabby Millennium. The 50,000 crowd created a fantastic atmosphere and delighted in jumping up and down Baggie style. They also displayed huge banners, critical of the way football is administered, in an impressively organised manner. They were single letter height but 10's of metres long, and were passed along a row of seats folded, to be unveiled in unison with other banners.
And the football - Napoli's young Argentine star, Lavezzi, got 2 goals in the first half and they contained forth placed Fiorentina in the second.
Eventually a bus arrived and transported us into the tunnel vortex. We escaped by jumping off and catching a nearly empty train which took us direct to the stadium. Wendy shoved and I followed into the crowd by the turnstiles but such was our rush we only just avoided going in the section with the notorious hard core Napoli Ultras. We were in our seats at the top of the stand with 2 minutes to go but only after I had squeezed through the full height turnstile with another fan due to a ticket problem.
The feeling that this really is a crazy city was confirmed when the police helicopter, which had been swirling overhead, appeared above the roof behind one goal and flew the length of the pitch at a shockingly low height just before kick-off.
The San Paolo stadium has 2 tiers of seating which sweeps in an oval broken only by a net which descends from the roof to cage the 250 away fans, looks a little like a shabby Millennium. The 50,000 crowd created a fantastic atmosphere and delighted in jumping up and down Baggie style. They also displayed huge banners, critical of the way football is administered, in an impressively organised manner. They were single letter height but 10's of metres long, and were passed along a row of seats folded, to be unveiled in unison with other banners.
And the football - Napoli's young Argentine star, Lavezzi, got 2 goals in the first half and they contained forth placed Fiorentina in the second.
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