Milan run riot to leave Napoli anxious about Champions League rematch

N aples has been preparing the party for months now: streets festooned with banners as blue as the sky above the Tyrrhenian Sea. Even in Italy’s most superstitious city, they cannot pretend to believe that any other team might pip them to the Serie A title. Coming out of this season’s final international break, Napoli were 19 points clear of second place, with only 11 games left to play.

Day by day, more decorations are added: a fresh mural of a tricolore badge celebrating this third Scudetto in Pallonetto or cardboard cutouts of players in the Spanish Quarter. Across the city, locals will tell you they are only just getting started. Yet there was no party atmosphere inside their own home stadium as Napoli welcomed Milan on Sunday night.

Even before kickoff, the atmosphere felt venomous. Ultra groups had declared themselves “on strike”, protesting restrictions on flags, flares and instruments allowed into the stadium, as well as high ticket prices for the forthcoming Champions League quarter-final against these same opponents. Some chanted insults against Napoli’s owner, Aurelio De Laurentiis. Other fans rebelled against them and sought to drown them out with whistles. Soon, there were fights on the Curva.

All this was just a backdrop to one of the most astonishing matches of the season, the champions-elect clobbered by the team whose title they intend on taking. Milan were not even in Serie A’s top four when the game kicked off, yet that was the number of goals they won by at the Stadio Diego Armando Maradona.

The rout began in the 17th minute, Brahim Díaz bamboozling two opponents on the right wing before releasing Rafael Leão through the middle for a chipped finish. The Spaniard grabbed the second himself, bringing