The Italian Football Federation had finally done something sensible, moving the match from its scheduled 11 p.m. kickoff to 7 p.m.
Late kickoffs in summer were meant to avoid the heat, but it was already November.
Even an afternoon kickoff would not have made much difference.
More surprisingly, the Brits had decided to broadcast the match.
That was historic.
Originally, the arrogant Brits had only become interested in Serie A after Gazza went to play there.
It was hard to say they were not hoping to watch Diego Maradona make a fool of himself.
Dejan Lu even dared guarantee that if Sampdoria suffered another flu outbreak in this match, quite a few Brits would go bankrupt.
Britain was one of the countries with the most gamblers in all of Europe.
With the media wildly hyping it up, a considerable number of Britons would be waving banknotes around and lining up to hand over their money.
Given the historical reasons, there probably would not be many Brits supporting Napoli.
Interestingly, Australia and the Philippines, former colonies of that father-and-son pair, were equally addicted to gambling. Perhaps that was the superiority of the English language.
Mantovani had been extremely busy lately.
Dejan Lu had only learned from overhearing staff conversations that more and more countries were broadcasting the match.
Some simply wanted to watch the spectacle, while others had political motives.
For example, broadcasts in East Germany were meant to prove that everything had changed. People could now watch the highest level of football, and life in East Germany would only get better and better.
Some sponsors also came knocking, waving stacks of cash.
The deep-pocketed Pepsi Cola agreed without much hesitation to pay one million dollars a year for an endorsement, though that figure was still far from Britney's one hundred