The Napoli squad left Naples on Friday to travel to Turin ahead of their match against Juventus on Saturday, and their stop at the airport was met by fans eager to see them off -- a whole lot of them.
Reports indicate that over 1,000 fans were at the airport to cheer Napoli on as they got set to travel, with flares, smoke, singing, and chanting galore as the gathered fans celebrated the team's accomplishments this season and hoped for more to come.
The gesture is especially meaningful ahead of this match because few Napoli fans will be in attendance. Tickets for the match in Turin's Juventus Stadium were not sold to people hailing from the Naples area or the Campania region because of security concerns -- the budding rivalry between Napoli and Juventus has grown rather heated in recent years, and authorities are hoping to avoid escalations of the relatively minor issues in the stands that have cropped up. Juventus fans faced a similar ban when they traveled to the San Paolo earlier this season.
Regardless, the celebratory display no doubt heartened the Napoli players who witnessed it and gave them further motivation to come back with three points and a firmer grasp on first place in Serie A. This match is huge, and the fans are making sure everyone knows just how important it is.