Maradona tributes the backdrop as rattled Napoli aim to bounce back

Napoli will pay tribute to Diego Maradona on Sunday when they host Lazio hoping to put two painful and costly consecutive defeats behind them.

The football world honoured Maradona on the anniversary of his death on Thursday but Napoli are using this weekend’s fixture to enable Neapolitans to finally say goodbye at the place where their icon was most at home.

On Thursday Napoli told supporters to arrive at the Stadio Diego Armando Maradona over three hours early so they could be in the stands for an “intense” commemoration ceremony dedicated to the man who led a previously mediocre team to their only two Serie A titles and the 1989 UEFA Cup.

Maradona remains a God-like figure in Naples, where children are still named Diego in his honour and murals of the Argentine can be found all over the city, despite his grisly fall from grace at the end of his turbulent seven years in southern Italy, a failed drugs test and details of a sordid private life dogging him as he fled back to Buenos Aires in 1991.

Now Napoli fans will be able to collectively express their love for Maradona in the stadium where he weaved magic at the peak of his career, after being locked out by Covid-19 a year ago.

“Naples was always there for dad, and he was always there for Naples,” says his son Diego Maradona Junior in a recent Sky Italia documentary.

“You see a sticker in a car, or a mural, or a kid on the street who has a top with Maradona written on the back, and that fills me with pride because he gave the people of my city unending joy.”

Napoli will be hoping for a boost from the pre-match events as they take on Lazio off the back of losses at Inter Milan and Spartak Moscow.

The 3-2 defeat at the San Siro last weekend was Napoli’s first of the league season, cut the gap between the league leaders and champions Inter to four points and cost them their star striker Victor Osimhen.

Osimhen is expected to be out of action for three months after fracturing his left cheek and eye socket in a sickening clash of heads with Milan Skriniar.