What is the best city in the world to watch a football game?
Wherever you go on this planet, you see kids kicking a football as well as stadiums that house the beautiful game, with one of the highlights of travel being watching a game on foreign soil.
The world is only getting smaller thanks to social media and cheap air travel, but football culture is still so unique and special, from the architecture of the stadiums, the smell of the concourse, to the songs sung in the crowd; every country has its own unique footballing DNA, and you can only truly get it by seeing it with your own eyes.
I’ve watched hundreds, if not thousands, of games across over 70 countries, but whenever people ask which is the best city to watch football in, there’s only one answer: Napoli. With a population of under one million and acting as the regional capital of Campania in Southern Italy, Napoli is one of the oldest continually inhabited places in the world, only a short distance from the ancient Roman city of Pompeii, which was once buried following the eruption of Mount Vesuvius.
There are cities that have more teams than Napoli, there are plenty with more trophies and far more expensive squads, but there’s no place on earth in which football is lived quite like it is in Napoli, where it isn’t a pastime or a way to spend a weekend afternoon; it’s an identity, a defiance, the lifeblood of the city and everyone within it.
The residents might have Italian passports, but they’re Neapolitans at heart. In the 1990 World Cup, the city hosted Italy’s clash with Argentina, and the locals supported the visitors, thanks to their hero Diego Maradona, and the disillusionment with their country. It’s often said that the Italian government favours the north of the country, which sees more money and more focus from the authorities, and that’s led cities in the south to really forge their own identity, with Naples standing as a great example of this.
You can’t really talk about football and Naples without starting at Maradona, with the great Argentinian heralded as a god in the city. He arrived for a world record fee in 1984 and won them their first Scudetto three years later. Walk anywhere in the city, and you’ll see his face, which is something you hear before you visit, yet you’ll still find yourself shocked at just how prevalent he is when you arrive. This is a religious country and a city lined with churches, but Maradona isn’t far off being a deity himself, with Napoli’s stadium renamed after him following his death in 2020.
In recent years, we’ve seen Scottish footballer Scott McTominay swap the streets of Manchester for Napoli, transforming from an off-cast mocked on social media, to an icon adored by his new city. Players past and present adorn the walls of the small, winding streets, and their shirts are hung in bars and restaurants, and you’ll even see dogs being walked as they wear shirts in Napoli’s renowned light blue. There is simply no greater city to be a footballer in than Napoli, a place where they admire hard work and passion and are ready to take you to their heart.
Pre-game, the city feels alive; your morning espresso hits you for six, you have the best pizza in the world for lunch, then spend the afternoon drinking in the sun, whether that’s an ice-cold lager or an Aperol Spritz in one of the city’s many bars based around the beverage. Then you arrive at the Stadio Diego Armando Maradona, and you’re shell-shocked at the old and huge structure looking like it’s crumbling, offset against the beautiful horizon, with Vesuvius visible on a clear day.
Outside, kids sell you booze, coffee and fags, and then you walk inside. There’s a liberal attitude to the smoking ban, by which I mean it’s totally ignored, and the 54,000 supporters inside build up a real atmosphere. The ultras of the Curva B are amongst the most passionate in the country, and they transform the act of supporting their team into something akin to performance art.
There are some great footballing cities in the world, with brilliant teams, exceptional fans and plenty of trophies, but nowhere can match the total integration of club and civic life that Napoli does, where the city is awash with that famous azure blue, and you see shirts, scarves and flags hanging from every window or balcony in the city.
