Sharjah24 – AFP: A cry goes up outside the San Paolo Stadium in Naples, where since daybreak Thursday tearful mourners have been laying candles and messages for football great Diego Maradona.

"Diego, Diego, Diego!" chants the crowd which gathered where scarves and shirts in Napoli's blue and white have been hung on the fence, transforming it into a makeshift shrine to the city's adopted "king".

"Hear our voices, hear our hearts," shouts Rosario, 77, famed among fans as the stadium's resident "poet", as applause goes up and grown men in face masks in the team's colours openly weep.

Buildings around the southern Italian city are adorned with depictions of the man who dragged Napoli to the top of the Italian game and became an icon for Neapolitans, whose chaotic city was feared and loathed by the rest of Italy.

Maradona played for the then-unfashionable Napoli between 1984 and 1991, after joining following an increasingly unhappy spell at Spanish glamour club Barcelona.
He also lifted the 1989 UEFA Cup, Napoli's only European trophy. He was still Napoli's record goalscorer until three years ago.