Naples: Aurelio De Laurentiis Reveals His Greatest Ambition on the Club’s Centennial
On the day of Napoli’s centennial, Aurelio De Laurentiis chooses the path of ambition. Speaking to Rai TGR Campania, the Napoli president strongly reiterated his determination to pursue the one major goal that has eluded his tenure: the Champions League. A goal that, in his words, is not just a dream, but the final piece of a cycle that has now lasted twenty-two years.
“I’ve been here for over twenty years, and the only thing missing is the Champions League—who knows if Allegri will bring it to us,” said De Laurentiis, whose message to Napoli’s new coach is anything but cryptic. “It’s always a goal, especially if your name is Napoli: we’re the only Italian team to have played in Europe for sixteen consecutive seasons.”
Founded on August 1, 1926, as Associazione Calcio Napoli (though there are some discrepancies among sources regarding the date, with documents indicating that the actual founding was officially recorded on August 25), taking up the legacy of Foot-Ball Club Internazionale-Naples (known as Internaples), Napoli has competed in 84 seasons in the top flight, winning the Scudetto four times (1986–87, 1989–90, 2022–23, 2024–25). It also boasts nine second-place finishes—the most recent in the season just concluded—and eleven third-place finishes, the most recent of which was in 2021–22.
In European competition, Napoli has participated in 12 editions of the European Cup/Champions League, with its best result being a quarterfinal appearance in 2022–2023. In the UEFA Cup/Europa League, the club has appeared in 22 editions, winning the 1988–1989 tournament in a two-legged final against Stuttgart (2–1 in Naples, 3–3 in Germany), while in the Cup Winners’ Cup, they have competed twice, reaching the semifinals in 1976–1977.
In Europe, Napoli has also competed in other tournaments, starting with the now-defunct Central European Cup/Mitropa Cup, in which the Neapolitans first participated in 1934: in both that edition and their second appearance, in 1966, the Azzurri did not advance past the round of 16.
There were also four appearances in the Fairs Cup (again, never advancing past the round of 16, in the 1966–67 and 1969–70 seasons), three in the Alpine Cup (won in 1960 as part of the FIGC delegation, alongside seven other Italian clubs, and individually in 1966, winning an eight-team tournament), one in the Anglo-Italian Cup (1970, losing in the final to Swindon Town), one in the Italian-English League Cup (won in 1976 against Southampton, with a 4-0 victory in Naples overturning a 0-1 loss in England), and one in the UEFA Intertoto Cup (2008, eliminated in the third round).
