Napoli revive memories of Maradona with Serie A title win

Napoli clinched the Serie A title on Thursday (May 4) with five games to spare as they ended a 33-year drought stretching back to when Diego Maradona led them to the Scudetto in 1990.

At the start of the season it would have been difficult to envisage Napoli becoming champions ahead of heavyweights such as Juventus and the two Milan clubs not to mention AS Roma.

During a close season of discontent, fans grumbled as key players like captain Lorenzo Insigne, Napoli's all-time top scorer Dries Mertens, Arkadiusz Milik, Fabian Ruiz and Kalidou Koulibaly all left for pastures new.

But after an exceptional transfer window and with Luciano Spalletti at the helm, Napoli dominated the title race while their main rivals all suffered slumps during the season.

They are currently 16 points clear of second-placed Lazio.

In Spalletti, the Naples club have an Italian manager who discarded traditional tactics and allowed talented players to flourish after a quick rebuild in the close season.

While Napoli's last two Serie A triumphs were focused around Maradona's greatness, this season's triumph can be attributed to a solid all-round squad guided by a shrewd manager.

Kim Min-Jae arrived from Fenerbahce to replace Koulibaly as the lynchpin at the back while Andre Frank Zambo Anguissa's loan move from Fulham was made permanent as he completed a three-man midfield alongside Stanislav Lobotka and Piotr Zielinski.

But it was their 22-year-old Georgian winger from Dinamo Batumi who made heads turn in Europe.

Khvicha Kvaratskhelia was a relatively unknown quantity when he arrived in Italy but he has scored 12 goals and provided 10 assists in 28 Serie A appearances to guide Napoli to the title while earning the nickname 'Kvaradona'.

With his vision and