Chelsea striker Gonzalo Higuain goals were announced in style at Napoli when he broke Serie A record
This is one way to get the crowd going.
“Gol per il Napoli,” he screamed. “The scorer…” “wearing the number nine, Gonzalo!” before waiting for the fans inside San Paolo’s 60,000-seater stadium to shout back “Higuain!”
It’s the voice of Daniele ‘Decibel’ Bellini, the club’s stadium announcer and huge Napoli fan.
He came to fame when new Chelsea signing Higuain scored for Napoli in a Champions League game against Borussia Dortmund in 2013, with Bellini belting out the striker’s name nine times in tribute to his shirt number.
The video was a viral hit, but his trademark style actually started when Edinson Cavani was scoring for fun in Naples.
Cavani, now with Paris Saint-Germain, scored 104 goals in 138 games between 2010 and 2013. “He wore no. 7,” Bellini told the New York Times. “So I thought one day I would say his name seven times. That was the start.”
In Higuain’s three years at Napoli he scored 71 goals in 104 league games, including a Serie A record of 36 under Sarri in the 2015/16 season before leaving for Juventus.
And Bellini is loved by players so much that he was the DJ at Jorginho’s wedding and Dries Mertens asked him to perform at his bash.
“After they had said, ‘I do,’ and kissed, Dries turned to me and shouted, ‘Daniele, Daniele, come here,’” he explained.
“I didn’t really want to, but I went up and took the microphone.
“Ladies and gentlemen, wearing the No. 14: Dries! Mertens!”
Over to you, Stamford Bridge.