Napoli: The Complete Guide to Maradona, the Stadium and Four Scudetti

Diego Maradona would have turned 66 on 30 October 2026. In Naples, that date never passes quietly. His face looks down from murals all over the city, the stadium in Fuorigrotta carries his name, and the two league titles he delivered still define what Napoli means to the people who follow them.

The year was already a big one. Napoli were founded as Associazione Calcio Napoli on 25 August 1926, so 2026 is the club's centenary. A hundred years in, the cabinet holds four Serie A titles, six Coppa Italias, three Supercoppas and a UEFA Cup, and the most recent Scudetto was won in May 2025.

This is a club story with everything in it. English sailors. A donkey mascot born out of ridicule. The greatest player of his generation, a bankruptcy and a film producer's rebuild. We'll walk you through the lot, then get down to the Napoli betting markets that matter and our angles for Massimiliano Allegri's first season in the dugout.

It starts in 1905 with the Naples Foot-Ball & Cricket Club. English sailor William Poths and Hector M. Bayon founded it alongside Neapolitans Conforti, Catterina and Amedeo Salsi, who became the first president. The kit was sky blue and navy stripes with black shorts, and the first match ended in a 3-2 win over the crew of a boat called the Arabik.

The foreign members split off in 1911/12 to form US Internazionale Napoli. Money trouble pushed the two back together in October 1922 as FBC Internaples, and on 25 August 1926 president Giorgio Ascarelli renamed the club Associazione Calcio Napoli. The new kit borrowed from both sides: sky blue from the Naples shirts, white shorts from Internazionale Napoli.

Why a donkey?

Because the first national league season, 1926/27, was a shambles. Napoli finished bottom of their group with one point from 18 games, and the locals started calling the team donkeys. Rather than sulk, the club leaned into it and swapped the horse from the city's emblem for "O Ciuccio". I Ciucciarelli, the little donkeys, still sits happily alongside Gli Azzurri and I Partenopei on the list of nicknames.

Things picked up. Attila Sallustro, a Paraguayan-born forward who refused to take a salary, scored 22 goals in 28 games in 1928/29. English coach William Garbutt took Napoli to third in 1932/33 and again in 1933/34. Relegation followed in 1942, and the post-war years swung up and down until the move to a new stadium in 1959. The first major trophy, the Coppa Italia, came in 1962.

Friends and enemies

The club anthem, "Napoli", is by Neapolitan singer Nino D'Angelo. Enemies? Napoli have no shortage. Juventus top the list, Roma bring the Derby del Sole, Inter and AC Milan are long-standing adversaries, and Salernitana make up the Derby of Campania. These games play by their own rules, as our derby betting guide explains (see the reading list at the end).

Before Maradona, Napoli had never been champions of Italy. With him, they won it twice.

In 1984 Napoli paid Barcelona a world-record £6.9 million for Diego Maradona. It was the second time he'd broken the world transfer record, two years after his £5 million move to Barcelona in 1982. Napoli had never won Serie A, and nobody in Naples was in the mood to wait.

In the summer of 1986 he captained Argentina to the World Cup. Then he came back to Naples and the trophies started to arrive. Napoli took their first Scudetto in 1986/87 and threw in the 1987 Coppa Italia for good measure. Not bad for a club once laughed at as donkeys.

Europe and a second title

The UEFA Cup arrived in 1989, with Napoli beating Stuttgart in the final. It remains the club's only European trophy. The second Scudetto followed in 1989/90, and the 1990 Supercoppa completed the full set of domestic honours.

Maradona played 188 league games for Napoli between 1984 and 1991 and scored 81 league goals. His Naples years ended in 1991 with a ban for cocaine use. He was later named FIFA Player of the Century jointly with Pelé.

He died on 25 November 2020, aged 60, and nine days later the stadium was renamed after him. The two titles he won stayed the club's only two for another 33 years. That tells you how much of Napoli's identity was built around one man.

The ground sits in the Fuorigrotta district of Naples. It opened on 6 December 1959 as the Stadio del Sole, and Napoli christened it with a 2-1 win over Juventus. In 1963 it became the Stadio San Paolo, after Paul the Apostle, and plenty of fans still call it that.

On 4 December 2020 it was renamed the Stadio Diego Armando Maradona, on a proposal from then-mayor Luigi de Magistris and club president Aurelio De Laurentiis. The record crowd belongs to another era: 90,736 for Napoli v Juventus on 15 December 1974.

These days it's all-seater and holds about 54,700, making it Italy's fourth-largest stadium behind San Siro, the Olimpico and Bari's San Nicola. A €20 million renovation for the 2019 Summer Universiade added wider seats and glass barriers and brought capacity down from 60,240.

Big nights

The stadium hosted matches at Euro 1980 and five games at the 1990 World Cup. England fans will remember the quarter-final, when Gary Lineker's 105th-minute penalty settled a 3-2 extra-time win over Cameroon. Then came the semi-final nobody in Naples forgets: Italy v Argentina finished 1-1 after extra time, Argentina won on penalties, and Maradona scored his kick in his own stadium.

What comes next

In June 2026 the city pushed a €200 million redevelopment: reopen the third tier, remove the athletics track, extend the roof and lift capacity from about 54,000 to 70,000. The plan cleared its technical feasibility stage in July 2026, and €50 million was released in September 2026 to get work started. Demand is strong, too, with an average of 47,632 for home league games in 2025/26 and 54,200 for Inter's visit on 25 October 2025.

Life after Maradona was hard. Napoli ran into financial trouble and went through relegations and a bankruptcy. The rescue came on 6 September 2004, when film producer Aurelio De Laurentiis refounded the club as Napoli Soccer, later SSC Napoli. He's still president, with his company Filmauro as owner, and Napoli were back in Serie A by 2007.

The trophies followed. Coppa Italia wins in 2012, 2014 and 2020, plus the 2014 Supercoppa, turned the modern Napoli into a fixture among Italy's elite. Then, 33 years after the last one, the third Scudetto landed in 2022/23.

Conte's title in 2024/25

Antonio Conte was appointed on 1 July 2024, and his first season brought the club's fourth title, their second in three years. Napoli finished on 82 points from 24 wins, 10 draws and four defeats, one point clear of Inter. They sealed it with a 2-0 home win over Cagliari at the Maradona on 23 May 2025.

It was a title won at the back. Napoli scored 59 to Inter's 79 but conceded just 27, which is about as Conte as numbers get.

There was no successful defence in 2025/26. Napoli finished second as Inter took a 21st title, clinched on 3 May 2026. The season still brought silverware, though: Napoli won the Supercoppa Italiana, reached the Coppa Italia quarter-finals and went out in the Champions League league phase, a European run that included a 6-2 defeat by PSV Eindhoven on 21 October 2025.

Rasmus Højlund led the scoring with 12 league goals and 16 in all competitions, and he signed permanently on 3 June 2026. The biggest win of the campaign was a 4-0 against Cremonese on 24 April 2026.

Conte left by mutual consent on 24 May 2026 after two seasons. His successor was a familiar face. Massimiliano Allegri, sacked by AC Milan on 25 May 2026, was appointed on 3 July 2026 on a contract to June 2029, and he even had a brief spell as a Napoli player in 1997/98.

A serial winner

Allegri's CV is the real selling point. He won Serie A with Milan in 2011, then five straight titles, four successive Coppa Italias and two Italian Super Cups with Juventus between 2014 and 2019, plus Champions League finals in 2015 and 2017. Back at Juventus from 2021, he added a fifth Coppa Italia in 2024. If you want a manager who knows how to win cups, Napoli have found one.

The 2026/27 Serie A season runs from 22 August 2026 to 30 May 2027. By 30 October 2026, nine of the 38 matchdays were done, and this is how the top of the table looked.

Table after matchday nine, as shown by BBC Sport on 30 October 2026.

Napoli sat seventh with four wins, two draws and three defeats, six points off the top four and 11 behind Inter and Lazio. The form line reads W L L W D W L D W, which is about as stop-start as an opening gets. One of those defeats was a cracking 3-2 loss to Inter at San Siro on 5 September 2026, in front of 75,423.

October showed you both sides of this team. A 3-0 home win over Frosinone on 10 October 2026 was followed by a 1-0 defeat at newly promoted Venezia on 17 October 2026. Then came a 3-3 draw with Roma at the Maradona on 24 October 2026 and a 4-1 win at Monza on 28 October 2026. With 17 goals scored and 11 conceded, this is a far more open Napoli than Conte's champions ever were.

The players who matter

Giovanni Di Lorenzo wears the armband. Kevin De Bruyne and Scott McTominay have four goals each in all competitions, all four of De Bruyne's in the league, and Billy Gilmour, Stanislav Lobotka and André-Frank Zambo Anguissa round out a seriously good midfield. Højlund leads the line, with David Neres, Matteo Politano, Noa Lang and Lorenzo Lucca among the attacking options. Alex Meret and Vanja Milinković-Savić compete in goal, while Alessandro Buongiorno, Amir Rrahmani and Sam Beukema are among the defensive options.

Europe needs a lift. After three of their eight league-phase games, Napoli were 22nd with three points, following a 3-1 defeat at Villarreal on 13 October 2026 and a 4-3 home win over Bodø/Glimt on 20 October 2026. That's inside the knockout play-off places with five games to play. Our Champions League league phase guide explains how the table works.

Domestically, there's a Coppa Italia round of 16 tie at home to Fiorentina on 16 December 2026, and the Serie A calendar is stacked with big games. Juventus away on 1 November 2026 and at home on 14 February 2027 are the standouts, and our Juventus complete guide has the full story on the Old Lady.

The other two league-phase games are Napoli v Club Brugge on 8 December 2026 and Sabah FK v Napoli on 20 January 2027. We'd circle the home dates with Brugge and Viking as the best chances to bank the points that push Napoli up the table.

A big club sitting seventh makes for an interesting betting proposition. The market still respects the name, but the table says this is a side finding its feet under Allegri, and that gap is where opportunities show up.

Match odds and what they imply

On 30 October 2026, ESPN's fixtures page (bookmaker not stated) had Juventus at 5/4 (2.25) and Napoli at 12/5 (3.40) for their meeting on 1 November 2026. For the trip to FC Porto on 4 November 2026, Porto were 23/20 (2.15) and Napoli 23/10 (3.30). No draw price was shown for either game, and prices move, so check the current odds before you bet. Turn any price into an implied chance and you can see exactly what the bookmaker is asking you to believe:

Implied probability = 1 / decimal odds

Napoli 12/5  -> 1 / 3.40 = 29.4%
Juventus 5/4 -> 1 / 2.25 = 44.4%

Rate Napoli's chance above 29.4% and 12/5 is value. If you fancy them but worry about a draw on a tough away day, draw no bet or double chance give you a shorter price with a safety net.

Top four over the title

Places one to four in Serie A go into the Champions League league phase. After nine matchdays Napoli were six points behind fourth-placed Como and 11 off the top, so the top-four finish market is a far more realistic target than the outright.

Goals and goalscorers

Napoli games have been lively. Their nine league matches produced 28 goals, and five of their last six across Serie A and the Champions League up to 28 October 2026 had three or more, with both teams scoring in four of them. That puts over 2.5 goals and both teams to score firmly on the radar. In the scorer markets, De Bruyne and McTominay offer midfield prices with striker-level output, and our anytime goalscorer guide explains how to weigh up minutes and penalty duties.

• Top four is the target, not the title. Six points off fourth after nine games is very gettable with 29 matchdays left. Eleven points behind Inter and Lazio is a much bigger ask.
• Expect goals. A 3-3 with Roma, 4-3 against Bodø/Glimt and 4-1 at Monza all came in October 2026, and this Napoli leak more than Conte's 27-goal champions did.
• Back the midfield scorers. De Bruyne and McTominay have matched each other goal for goal, and midfielders usually come at bigger prices than centre-forwards.
• Take cover on the big away trips. Juventus, Porto and Manchester City away are exactly the games where draw no bet or double chance earns its keep.
• Højlund is the striker to follow. He scored 12 league goals in 2025/26, and a side this goal-hungry should keep creating chances for him.
• Respect Allegri in the cups. Five Coppa Italias as a manager speaks for itself, and the round of 16 tie at home to Fiorentina on 16 December 2026 is a good place to start.

Whatever you back, set a budget before kick-off and stick to it. No team is a sure thing.

• Juventus: History, Trophies, Allianz Stadium and the Old Lady's Rise and Falls
• La Liga, Serie A, Bundesliga & Ligue 1 2026/27 Title Betting Preview
• Atletico Madrid: The Complete Guide
• Inter Milan: Complete History, Trophies & San Siro Guide
• Boca Juniors v River Plate: The Superclasico Guide

18+. Please gamble responsibly. For free, confidential support visit BeGambleAware.org.