Naples has been planning its scudetto party as best it can. Historians might point out that the city, impatient these last few days for its raucous celebration, has learnt long and hard how to wait.
It is 33 years since Napoli were last champions of Italy’s Serie A, but so large is the lead they have built up at the top of the table that even by November, the light-blue bunting was being readied for display.
The difficulty for everybody concerned with keeping under control the explosion of joy that will greet the official sealing of the title, is that however hard they try to choreograph the moment, the final step has been devilishly hard to forecast.
Somehow a team defined by their impeccable momentum have found a way to defy the schedulers with all the mazy unpredictability of a Khvicha Kvaratskhelia dribble.
On Tuesday, in anticipation of Napoli – beaten just three times in their 32 league matches so far – collecting the single point they need to confirm the title at Udinese, there were still talks going on between mayors, police chiefs and club presidents about whether to change Thursday's kick-off time.
They decided against. Udine is 850 kilometres north of Naples, but celebrations will still take over its streets if Napoli cross the finishing line there. The party could even start on Wednesday if second-placed Lazio fail to win against Sassuolo, leaving the Rome club too far behind the soaraway table-toppers to catch up in the five fixtures left.
At the weekend, Lazio had obliged Napoli by throwing away a lead at Inter Milan, and losing 3-1. Napoli’s home game against Salernitana, where a win would have sufficed, had been rescheduled at short notice to follow Inter-Lazio, and so set up a fitting climax for the champions-elect in the Diego Armando Maradona Stadium.
When Mathias Olivera gave Napoli the lead, flares were ignited, blue smoke billowing from the streets and into the arena. But when Salernitana’s Boulaye Dia equalised, there was pin-drop silence.
It finished 1-1, Napoli had failed to win for the fourth time in five games across competitions. Are they wobbling? “It just means extending the celebrations,” said manager Luciano Spalletti. “I am very happy with the league table.”
He has been happy with it, without quite boasting, or, until now, openly admitting the title is a shoo-in, for many weeks. Napoli are 18 points clear, and even for Spalletti who, across his two spells as manager of Roma, finished second in Serie A four times, the fear of a damaging late collapse is long past: “I am confident we will get the point.”
For Spalletti, who started out in club management 30 seasons ago, the wait for an elite-level league title has been almost as long as for Napoli. With it, he will at last secure a place among the high-class compatriot coaches of his era.
He will achieve what Carlo Ancelotti and Maurizio Sarri, both winners of Italian league and European titles elsewhere, could not quite do as managers of a Napoli squad consolidating their place as contenders but not adding the fairy-tale ending to a fabulous climb. Seventeen years ago, after a plunge that took them close to bankruptcy, they were in Serie C, the third division.
Spalletti deflects the credit for what will be only the club’s third title – and the first from outside the glorious period of the late 1980s and early 90s when Maradona was playing – away from himself and on to the players. The limelight is new to many. Nine months ago, the men whose images are now blended with Maradona’s on murals on the city’s facades were far from household names.
Take the dazzling winger Kvaratskhelia. He was signed last summer from Dinamo Batumi in his native Georgia to scepticism about how he could possibly fill the roles of departed club legends, Lorenzo Insigne and Dries Mertens.
Kim Min-jae, the South Korean central defender hired from Galatasaray, seemed an obscure replacement for the much-loved Kalidou Koulibaly, whose nine years at Napoli ended with his €38 million sale to Chelsea. Back in August, with so many farewells to long-serving players, the club was in a state of upheaval.
It turned out Napoli were not weakened but refreshed. Kvaratskhelia and Victor Osimhen have been a thrillingly potent attacking double-act, Kim a giant in an Italian football culture that reserves special respect for excellent defending.
“The players deserve the attention because I’ve seen their dedication, desire and talent every day in training,” said Spalletti.
And the fans, readying themselves to party, arranging new dates when the party gets postponed?
“The pleasure has only been delayed,” he insists. “We’ll get them there.”