It’s late on a Wednesday night in April 2018, and Naples is dreaming.

These aren’t dreams confined to slumber though; the 44,000 Neapolitans inside the stadium are wide awake, their bodies practically vibrating as the adrenaline surges and imaginations run wild. 

SSC Napoli have just beaten Udinese Calcio 4-2, twice coming from behind to claim a vital win. In the final moments of the game, the news had filtered through that Juventus – hated rivals, table toppers, and Serie A champions of the previous six seasons – had drawn at strugglers Crotone. Napoli were now just four points off top spot with a trip to Juventus up next. A first scudetto since 1990 was within reach. As the players walked over to the curva to show their appreciation, the tifosi serenaded their heroes with one of the most beautiful songs in football.

That Maurizio Sarri’s side weren’t crowned 2017/18 Serie A champions is one of football’s great tragedies. The greatest Napoli team since the glory days of Diego Maradona played a brand of attacking football – coined Sarriball, unlike anything ever seen before on the peninsula. I Partenopei went to Turin and snatched a last-gasp win to close the gap to a single point. But one week later, a 0-3 collapse in Florence undid all their hard work. Ultimately, a season of scintillating football and a club-record points tally of 91 counted for nothing. Not that you would have known that from the reaction of the tifosi. At Napoli – as is the case all over Italy – loyalty and pride is more important than winning.

After that win against Udinese, after the title bid collapsed and at pretty much every game since, Napoli fans have sung Sarò con te. Every football club has its loyal fans, and every fanbase has its famous songs, so what’s the big deal? The special thing about Sarò con te is that it perfectly encapsulates the emotions, the joys and the hardships of not only supporting Napoli, but of being a Neapolitan. It goes like this:

Sarò con te,

Tu non devi mollare,

Abbiamo un sogno nel cuore,

Napoli torna campione!

I will be with you,

You must not give up,

We have a dream in our hearts,

Naples returns to the champion!

The last line is followed by a chorus of ‘ooohs’ and ‘ahhs’, an emotional, melancholy sound that when sung in unison by thousands of voices, sounds not dissimilar to the congregation singing hymns at Sunday mass. It is spine-tingling in its beauty. Add to that a drumbeat and synchronised clapping during the verses, and you’ve got an all-timer of a song. So where did it come from?

“It started when Napoli was finally, seriously, challenging for the title again,” explains Michele Borelli, Neapolitan, Napoli fan and the man behind @NapoliTickets. “It rallied the whole fanbase behind the team for an attempt to get the Scudetto, which wasn’t successful eventually. 

“These kinds of things feed themselves. It becomes viral, then next time it’s chanted even more intensely, which makes it even more viral. This one has become an instant classic, because of the lyrics.”

The lyrics themselves are interesting; they acknowledge the fact that despite Napoli’s lack of success over the past three decades, the fans will always stand with them and dream of the day they become champions again. 

That sentiment mirrors the daily struggles that Neapolitans have faced for centuries, and the need for resilience and unity to overcome them. It’s not easy to survive in Naples. The largest city in Italy’s poor south is largely neglected by the politicians in Rome and by the wealth of Italy’s northern cities. Poverty, corruption and crime have been allowed to fester over the decades. In late 2020 the unemployment rate in the region of Campania stood at around 17%, and in Naples the figure hit 28% as recently as 2005. If Neapolitans needed another daily reminder of the obstacles facing them, then the ominous shadow of Vesuvius provides it.

Anti-Neapolitan racism is a sad reality too; at away games Napoli fans are routinely told that ‘Naples isn’t Italy’ (a reference to their African and Middle Eastern heritage and higher levels of immigration in the region) and that they are ‘cholera sufferers’ – a reference to an outbreak in the city in the 1970’s. 

On the pitch, decades of hardship and struggle have amplified the cultural phenomenon that is campanilismo – the ferocious defence of your town’s bell tower - that binds supporters across Italy to their clubs. The post-Maradona years were bleak, and saw a gradual slide from title winners in 1990 to relegation eight years later. In 2004 the club was declared bankrupt and reformed in the third tier as Napoli Soccer.

The sense that it is Naples – and by extension, SSC Napoli - versus the rest of Italy, has helped forge a unique bond between supporter and club, while the idea of arrangiarsi – the ability to simply ‘get by’ – makes Napolitani more grounded and accepting of disappointment than followers of Italy’s other big clubs.

That historical context, the meaning of the lyrics, and the way the song brings everyone together has seen Sarò con te become a key part of Napoli’s identity in recent years. That Napoli’s substitutes warm up wearing training bibs with the first two lines emblazoned on the back shows the club recognise that just as much as the fans.

There is no shortage of iconic football anthems; You’ll Never Walk Alone, the various versions of Sí Señor that emanated from Argentina, the hymns of AS Roma and Sevilla FC, Dale Cavese… the list is endless. All are beautiful in their own way, but there’s something in the sentiment, the sound and the lyrics of Sarò con te that make it extra special. If attending a match at the Stadio Diego Armando Maradona and hearing the song in-person isn’t on your football bucket list, it really should be.