The main topic of the essay is the XXX Universiade that took place in Naples in July 2019. In the field of a general framework related to the sportive events that, in Italy, produced construction of not only sportive facilities – Olympic Games in Rome in 1960 – or processes of urban regeneration – Winter Olympic Games in Turin in 2006 – the essay analyzes the case of the city of Naples where the great events have never produced positive effects. Despite this history, the Summer Universiade in Naples – perhaps for its ‘lower rank’ compared to the Olympic Games, having fewer possibilities in terms of resources and public involved – mostly used the existing sport facilities in the city and on the whole regional territory but it had the significant merit of bringing back the attention, beyond the success of the sport event, to two masterpieces of the twentieth century Neapolitan architecture – forgotten the first, neglected and outraged by the interventions for the Football World Cup Italy’90 the second: they are the Restaurant with swimming pool in the Mostra d’Oltremare and the San Paolo stadium, both designed by the Neapolitan architect Carlo Cocchia.