Torino vs Napoli Throwback: Musella Strikes for a Scudetto Illusion

Not many people know that Napoli came close to conquering the Serie A for the first time even before Diego Maradona’s coming to the Parthenopean city. When Diego was still a relatively unknown craque at Argentinos Juniors, the Neapolitan fan hearts beat for a slightly younger lad raised just a few meters away from the then San Paolo Stadium.

His name was Gaetano Musella and, on April 12, 1981, he scored the only goal of the day in a key battle at Torino that sent Napoli top of the Serie A table with just five matchdays left.

Napoli’s Scudetto dream didn’t last long as, just one week later, they threw their chances away by losing 0-1 to already-relegated Perugia. However, that win at the Stadio Comunale in Turin marked the first time that the Partenopei got really close to grasping the Italian title. It was all thanks to a scugnizzo, a “street boy” born in Naples and nurtured by the club’s youth academy.

Musella was 20 years old when he was given a starting spot in a Napoli side built around Dutch veteran libero Ruud Krol and featuring a bunch of young players in many other key positions. In the previous season, he had made his bones on loan at Padova in Serie C, netting 8 goals out of 23 caps. That had been enough to convince coach Rino Marchesi to invest on him.

A fine right foot and a wild looking tuft that made him look like local staple singer Nino D’Angelo turned him into an instant fan favorite. The five goals, all decisive, that he scored during the season also helped a lot.   

The 1980/81 campaign marked a turning point in the history of the Serie A. The Italian elite division was not in a great shape. Fifteen years earlier, the Italian Football Association (FIGC) had banned foreign footballers from playing in Italy in an attempt to develop local players and reverse the Nazionale’s declining trend.

But while Italy’s results had indeed improved, the Serie A had experienced a string of boring, low-scoring seasons. And so, in 1980 the autarchy came to an end as the FIGC re-opened their frontiers and allowed each team to sign one foreign player. That was how Napoli could get Krol, while other international stars like Herbert Prohaska and Paulo Roberto Falcao also came to play in the Belpaese. They were the first of many more to come in the golden 1980s decade.    

That was not the only novelty. The Totonero, the first (but not the last…) betting scandal in Serie A, had just changed the geography of the league, resulting in the immediate demotion of Lazio and Milan, while three more clubs started the season with a point deduction.

The result of such major upheavals was a balanced competition with Juventus, Roma, and Napoli all battling for the Scudetto, while defending champions Inter progressively lost ground. When Napoli paid a visit to Torino on April 12, 1981, they were tied with Juventus at 33 points and were trailing Roma by one.

The Granata were not scary in those days. Only five years earlier they had won their 7^th and last Scudetto, but their cycle had come to an end and many of their key players, including their all-time top scorer Paolino Pulici, were well past their prime. Some of them, like midfielders Patrizio Sala and Claudio Zaccarelli, were also injured and could not face the Partenopei.

Six minutes into the game at the Comunale, Musella pounced on a Claudio Pellegrini cross from the left side and headed the ball past Giuliano Terraneo. Torino’s reaction was vehement, but they were held off, ironically, by Giuliano Castellini, their former goalkeeper from the last Scudetto days who now played for Napoli.

Meanwhile, Roma tied against Fiorentina and Juventus won at Pistoiese (a Tuscan club that enjoyed their only run in the top-flight in 1980/81), so that all three sides were now tied at 35 points.

The following week, the Neapolitans lost to Perugia at the San Paolo and, gone were their dreams. But that game from a few days before at Torino is still remembered as one of the most iconic in the club’s history. It was the first time that Napoli really believed they could make it. It would just take a few more seasons.  

As for Musella, his story is one of those classic, unfortunate tales of promising young players that never quite fulfill their talent. In Musella’s case, it is not even really clear why he didn’t. It’s not like he was a hothead or so.

Napoli’s new coach Massimo Giacomini just didn’t appreciate him as Rino Marchesi did, so he decided to move to Catanzaro, where he enjoyed a prolific four-year stint but eventually fell in Serie B together with the club. From then on, he never quite managed to regain top-flight status consistently and floated in the lower divisions until his retirement in 1996.

In 2013, Gaetano Musella passed away at just 53 years of age due to a heart attack. The once scugnizzo may not have lived up to the hype, but that rough looking tuft and that winning header in Turin that gave the Azzurri the illusion of a Scudetto surely earned a special little place in Napoli’s history.  

MATCH SCORECARD

April 12, 1981 – Serie A 1980/81 Round 25
TORINO – NAPOLI 0-1

SCORER: 6′ Musella

	TORINO: Terraneo, Volpati, Francini, Salvadori, Cuttone, Van de Korput, D’Amico (69′ Mariani), Pecci, Graziani, Sclosa, Pulici (Copparoni, Masi, Bertoneri, Destro) Coach: Cazzaniga
	NAPOLI: Castellini, Bruscolotti, Marangon, Celeste, Krol, Damiani, Vinazzani (46′ Niccolini), Musella (71′ Cascioni), Guidetti, Pellegrini (Fiore, Speggiorin, Ciccarelli) Coach: Marchesi

REFEREE: Mr. Michelotti from Parma
NOTES: No Yellow Cards

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