Resident Italian football writer takes a look at a former champions journey back to where they belong.
May 1985, and as Live Aid prepares to “Rock the World”, Hellas Verona break the stranglehold of Italian football’s traditional superpowers to clinch an unexpected scudetto and send its supporters into dreamland.
Inspired by the brilliant Danish striker Preben Elkjær, German defender Hans-Peter Briegel and Italian international winger PietroFanna, the Gialloblu took the title by four points from their nearest challengers Torino. Against all expectation, Coach Osvaldo Bagnoli had masterminded the most unlikely of achievements to cement his place in Veronese folklore in what was thought at the time, to be the start of a halcyon period in the clubs history.
Just six years on from their coronation as Kings of Italian football, Hellas Verona’s future lay in tatters as a series of financial problems finally caught up with the club to such an extent that the team in its then current guise folded but was immediately reborn as Verona FC. In 1995, the name of the club returned to its original form as the team continued to fluctuate between Serie A and Serie B.
In 2007, after 64 years in the top two divisions of Italian football, the unthinkable happened as Hellas were relegated to Serie C1, Italy’s third tier. The club was in financial meltdown and had to also come to terms with the tragic death of club President Pietro Arvedi D’Emilei who, after a car accident in December of 2008, fell into a coma and finally lost his fight for life in March of 2009.
New President Giovanni Martinelli promised to get the team back into Serie B as quickly as possible and at the end of last season the squad, bolstered by a host of new signings almost delivered, eventually falling in an end of season play-off against Pescara. It seemed as though the team’s fortunes were finally on an up-turn and at the start of the current campaign, Martinelli brought in former Roma legend Giuseppe Giannini to try to continue the good work of the previous year.
But once again, as soon as the club looked to be turning a corner, the wheels fell off and after a disastrous start to the current campaign Giannini was sacked in November and replaced by veteran tactician Andrea Mandorlini. However, since the winter break, the club’s fortunes have once again been turned around with the team currently sitting in fifth position in the table and looking good to reach the promotion play-offs for a second consecutive season.
Mandorlini seems to have finally got the team functioning as a unit and with strikers Giuseppe Le Noci and Thomas Pichlmann finding the net at regular intervals, the tifosi once again have cause for optimism as the season enters the final straight. Only this week on the clubs official website, Brazilian goalkeeper Rafael gave an interview in which he explained how much better the team has become under the tutelage of their 50-year-old coach.
So 26 years on from the clubs finest hour, the omens look good for a team that has suffered more heartache and tragedy than any Shakespearean play could ever contain. As the city’s other club, the Flying Donkeys of Chievo Verona, continue to play in Italy’s premier division, their big brother has once again got to dust himself down and prepare for another gigantic battle to regain his place where most of Italian football believes he should be, fighting on the fields of Milan, Turin and Rome.
Find where you will find him waxing lyrical about Italian football.
