The first time I was in Naples I was 7 years old, I still remember that encounter.
Together with my grandparents, I came from a visit to the excavations of Pompei, it was early October, the air was calm and pleasant and the sound of seagulls, for months, inhabited my dreams, usually full of mountain silences.
The sea as blue as the sky, the sleeping giant dominating the gulf, the thousands of colours of a surprising city, a feast for the eyes of a child full of curiosity.
We got off at the Garibaldi station and from there crossing Forcella we headed towards the historic center, the buzz of life was something magical for me, I've always been used to a slightly slower pace and less crowded places.
Children in the street playing with Super Santos (a ball), with two stones as football goals, there was a life made of dreams, the same dreams I shared and my own passion for that game called football.
And it is precisely that passion that today unites all the Italian sportsmen and from all over the world in a choral and heartfelt applause for the deeds of the Neapolitan Azzurri.
But, even more than the team, it is the city of Naples with its wonders and its warm and creative people that warms the hearts of passion.
The streets decorated in white and blue, full of Neapolitan pride which, through a game, flows into the essence of life, that of the continuous search for a happiness too often lost behind futile things.
Living the city these days is understanding Happiness, the true concept of life, almost turns upside down and everything, for me, in a dimension of perennial childhood.
I think I have an irrational relationship with Naples that intoxicates my mind and fills my heart and I, disarmed by this, let myself be transported into a timeless dimension, where reason bows respectfully down to an immoderate Passion.
This is my small tribute to the city and its wonderful people, that make Naples the city of joy, where dreams came true.
