Napoli and Fiorentina turn 100 four days apart

Napoli were founded on 25 August 1926. Fiorentina followed four days later, on 29 August. Both clubs turn 100 this year, and on Sunday 20 September they meet at the Franchi with recent runs that look more alike than the table suggests.

Suffering runs in both fanbases' DNA, and recent history bears that out: both clubs reached their centenary after a boardroom collapse. In 2002 the Cecchi Gori era ended in traumatic fashion, and the Della Valle family rebuilt from Serie C2 (then Italy's fourth tier), earning a direct jump to Serie B on sporting merit. Two years later it was Napoli's turn: Aurelio De Laurentiis showed up at the door of the old Castel Capuano court with €32m and a project few understood at the time — one that, after two Scudetti, now openly targets the Champions League.

A bond forged on the pitch

The sporting connection between the two clubs runs deeper than it looks. Napoli's first-ever Scudetto, in 1987, was sealed on 10 May at the San Paolo against a Fiorentina side that fielded Roberto Baggio up front and had Marco Landucci in goal — now Allegri's assistant coach. Corrado Ferlaino, the club president of that title-winning side and the man who brought Diego Maradona to Napoli, always named a different trophy as the most emotional of his time in charge: the 1989 UEFA Cup. The final in Stuttgart finished 3-3, and Ferlaino still fills up telling the story.

The two fanbases share an enemy, too, in Juventus, who in 1990, on the eve of the Italy '90 World Cup, took Baggio away from Fiorentina. Back at the Comunale (Fiorentina's old ground) as an opponent the following spring, Baggio refused to take a penalty and picked up a purple scarf thrown from the stands.

An Argentine thread ties the two histories together as well. Gabriel Batistuta scored 207 goals in the viola shirt, earning him the nickname Bati-gol, and for years his strike partner was Ciccio Baiano, a boy from Soccavo and the son of a barber on via Epomeo — it was Maradona who first spotted his talent. In Vanoli's Fiorentina, that link continues today through Franco Mastantuono and Pellegrino.

Diego's story with Napoli did not end with his forced departure in 1991 or his death in 2020 — it is present every day, in the streets and in the stadium that now carries his name. Fiorentina's president at the time, Commisso, visited the mural at Largo de Deo before the match on 7 May three years ago; that day his side gave Spalletti's Napoli, who had won the Scudetto in Udine three days earlier, the pasillo de honor — the guard of honour reserved for champions. On Sunday at the Franchi, with Doveri as referee, another chapter of that shared history gets written.