NAPLES - A Scudetto will not change the rules of the game, surely!

 I am convinced, however, that Napoli's victory is, on the one hand, a point of arrival and, on the other, an opportunity for Naples to launch itself towards new horizons. It is as if we are only waiting for the referee's whistle to kick off, then everything will happen, the city will take its big breath and know in which direction to go.

 Naples, it is known, is the land of contradictions, but it always knows how to resolve them in a perfect synthesis.

 Naples is a womb within which social, cultural, civil, economic and financial urgencies are pressing. Hunger and despair are intertwined with the robustness and solidity of a part of the city that manages to experience a quality of life that, unfortunately, does not belong to the entire population, which is stratified in a highly varied manner. The almost constitutive lack of work, for example, an execrable scourge that must necessarily be curbed, places a certain part of Neapolitan humanity in a state of impoverishment, and this condition inevitably spills over into the social and cultural aspects.

 Is it possible to remedy and give impetus to a land that is already too tormented? I believe so! Naples, like the South, has the resources and energy to undertake a rebirth process. What happened at a sporting level is an excellent metaphor that, transported to a social, cultural, economic level, can signify the ability to get up, sweat, run and win, typical of the Neapolitan people. Naples and the entire Mezzogiorno will be able to turn blue, like the sky and the sea, and start again.

 Just as Napoli football over the years had planned to win the Scudetto, so should politicians, institutions, intellectuals and representatives of public and private bodies, who know how to act on such a rugged terrain, yet full of seething magma, join forces and write a successful script that crowns Naples as an iconic city that knows how to demonstrate that it is capable of living its golden age. It would be enough to start with the enormous potential that Naples has with respect to tourism, and then the revaluation of the immense artistic and architectural works and the bubbling spark in the cultural sphere, and then gastronomy and so much more. Naples, without a doubt, can be counted among the most beautiful places in the world.

 Come on, let's do it! Let's strip the name of Naples of the negative label that pseudo-intellectuals and artists, including Neapolitans, have saddled it with for too long. Stop thinking of Naples as criminal and uncivilised. Naples has the seed of Beauty within it; just think of the culture associated with great names such as Eduardo, Scarpetta, Totò and many other men of science and genius.

 Let's kick off, loud and strong. Naples, champion of Italy, will succeed in becoming world champions.

Napule è nu paravise

‘O sole ‘e auto ‘n’do cielo,

‘e nuvole a pecurella

traccn ‘na via senza pace.

Napule!

Napule è nu paravise

addò se chiagne e se rire,

addò ‘o ricco è uguale ‘o povr,

addò chi nun tene nient

nun tene mai fame,

addò se contano ‘e passi,

addò ‘o tiempo è uguale ‘o spazio,

addò pare che tutto se move,

ma tutto è fermo, immobile…

n’attesa can un tene

mai fine.

Francesco Terrone