Napoli raring to lift first Serie A title since Maradona

Napoli are poised to secure their first Serie A title since Argentine superstar Diego Maradona led the Italian team to victory in 1990, more than 30 years ago. Maradona led Napoli to its only Serie A trophies in 1987 and 1990 in what was previously known as the Stadio San Paolo. 

The dream of winning the Scudetto again could become reality on Sunday in the southern city desperate to beat their rich northern rivals.

Thousands of expectant fans will descend on the stadium named after their Argentine icon hoping to be able to call their team champions of Italy, ending a 33-year wait for Napoli to be crowned the country's top team. The stadium was renamed for him when he died two and a half years ago.

With a 17-point lead with seven games remaining Luciano Spalletti's team have to beat Salernitana and hope Lazio don't win at Inter Milan in order to cap a magnificent league season which has stunned fans and defied pre-season expectations.

Napoli were a club in turmoil in the summer whose fans were in open revolt against owner Aurelio De Laurentiis after falling away in last term's title race and selling off beloved players like Kalidou Koulibaly.

Nine months later and summer signings Khvicha Kvaratskhelia and Kim Min-jae are lynchpins of a thrilling team who were champions-elect by mid-February and bewitched Europe with a run to the Champions League quarter-finals.

It was Giacomo Raspadori, signed after the season started, who gave Napoli their first match point with his last-gasp winner at Juventus on Sunday night. That 1-0 win in Turin sparked wild celebrations among supporters, thousands of whom waited for the team at Naples airport.

Afterwards a phalanx of moped-riding fans, some packed three to a scooter and almost none wearing helmets, followed the team bus back into the city to a tune of blaring police sirens and honking horns.

Those supporters will know whether Napoli have a shot at winning the league this year by the time they take to the Stadio Maradona field as the match with Salernitana was pushed back to Sunday, after Lazio's clash at Inter, for public order reasons.

Meanwhile, Napoli fans have long joked about celebrating, if they win the Serie A title, with a stunt on Vesuvius, but as victory nears, the volcano's custodians felt obliged Friday to warn them off.

The Vesuvius National Park Authority said it had read "with great concern" media reports about plans by some fans to organise a "simulation of the Vesuvius explosion with an 'invasion' of the area and the lighting of tricolour smoke bombs on the top of the crater".

"The park authority considers this idea dangerous and not feasible," it said in a statement ahead of two crucial matches on Sunday.