Hellas Verona F.C.
| Full name | Hellas Verona Football Club SpA | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Nickname(s) | Gialloblu (Yellow-Blues), Mastini (Mastiffs); Scaligeri (Scaligers) |
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| Founded | 1903 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Ground | Stadio Marc'Antonio Bentegodi, Verona, Italy (Capacity: 39,211) |
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| Chairman | Pietro Arvedi D'Emilei | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Manager | Gian Marco Remondina | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| League | Lega Pro Prima Divisione - A | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 2007-08 | Serie C1/A, 17th | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Hellas Verona Football Club S.p.A (commonly known simply as Verona, or Hellas within the city of Verona itself) is an Italian professional football team, based in Verona, Veneto. The team's colours are yellow and blue and gialloblu (literally, "yellow-blue" in Italian) is the team's most widely used nickname. The colours represent the city itself and Verona's emblem (a yellow cross on a blue shield) appears on most team apparel. Two more team nicknames are Mastini (the mastiffs) and Scaligeri, both references to Mastino I della Scala of the Della Scala princes that ruled the city during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.
The Scala family coat of arms is depicted on the team's jersey and on its trademark logo as a stylized image of two large, powerful mastiffs facing opposite directions. In essence, the term "scaligeri" is synonymous with Veronese, and therefore can describe anything or anyone from Verona (eg., Chievo Verona, a different team that also links itself to the Scala family - specifically to Cangrande della Scala).
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Origins and early history
Founded in 1903 by a group of university students, the club was named Hellas (the Greek word for Greece), at the request of a professor of Classics. At a time in which football was played seriously only in the larger cities of the Northwest of Italy, most of Verona was indifferent to the growing sport. However, when in 1906 two city teams chose the city's Roman amphitheatre as a venue to showcase the game, crowd enthusiasm and media interest began to rise.
During these first few years Hellas was one of three or four area teams playing mainly at a municipal level while fighting against city rivals Bentegodi to become the city's premier football outfit. By the 1907-1908 season, Hellas was playing against regional teams and an intense rivalry with Vicenza Calcio that lasts to this day was born.
From 1898 to 1926 Italian football was organised into regional groups. In this period Hellas was one of the founding teams of the early league and often among its top final contenders. In 1911, the city helped Hellas replace the early, gritty football fields with a proper venue. This allowed the team to take part in its first regional tournament, which until 1926, was the qualifying stage for the national title.
In 1919, following a return to activity after a four year suspension of all football competition in Italy during World War I the team merged with city rival Verona and changed its name to Hellas Verona. Between 1926 and 1929 the elite "Campionato Nazionale" assimilated the top sides from the various regional groups and Hellas Verona joined the privileged teams, yet struggled to remain competitive.
Serie A, as it is structured today, began in 1929, when the Campionato Nazionale turned into a professional league. Still an amateur team, Hellas merged with two city rivals, Bentegodi and Scaligera, to form AC Verona. Hoping to build a first class contender for future years the new team debuted in Serie B in 1929. It would take the gialloblu 28 years to finally achieve their goal. After first being promoted to Serie A for one season in 1957-58, in 1959 the team merged with another city rival (called Hellas) and commemorated its beginnings by changing its name to Hellas Verona AC.
Success in the '70s and '80s
Return to Serie A
Coached by Nils Liedholm, the team returned to Serie A in 1968 and remained in the elite league almost without interruption until 1990. Along the way it scored a famous 5-3 win in the 1972-1973 season that cost AC Milan the scudetto (the Serie A title). The fact that the result came late during the last matchday of the season makes the sudden and unexpected end to the rossoneri's title ambitions all the more memorable.
In 1973-1974 Hellas finished the season in 4th last place thus avoiding relegation, but were sent down to Serie B during the summer months as a result of a scandal involving team president Saverio Garonzi. After a year in Serie B Hellas Verona returned to Serie A.
Three Coppa Italia finals
In the 1975-1976 season the team had a successful run in the Coppa Italia, eliminating highly rated teams such as AC Torino, Cagliari Calcio, and Internazionale from the tournament. However, in their first ever final in the competition Hellas Verona were trounced 4-0 by SSC Napoli.
Under the leadership of legendary coach Osvaldo Bagnoli, in 1982-1983 the team secured 4th place in Serie A (its highest finish at the time) and even lead the Serie A standings for a few weeks. The same season Hellas again reached the Coppa Italia final. After a 2-0 home victory Hellas Verona travelled to Turin to play Juventus F.C. where the team lost the Cup in extra-time (3-0 defeat).
Heartbreak would follow in the 1983-1984 season when the team again reached the Coppa Italia final only to lose the Cup in the final minutes of the return match against defending Serie A champions AS Roma.
1984-1985 Scudetto
Hellas Verona AC is certainly most famous for going on to win the scudetto the following season (1984-85) and for its regular presence in European club football in the mid 1980s. In those years its usual lineup was the following: Claudio Garella; Mauro Ferroni, Luciano Marangon, Roberto Tricella, Silvano Fontolan; Hans-Peter Briegel, Pietro Fanna, Domenico Volpati, Antonio Di Gennaro; Giuseppe Galderisi, Preben Elkjær Larsen and coach Osvaldo Bagnoli. Subs Luciano Bruni, Luigi Sacchetti and Fabio Turchetta were important regular contributors as well.
Although the 1984-1985 squad was made up of a healthy mix of emerging players and mature stars, at the beginning of the season no one would have regarded the team as having the necessary ingredients to make it to the end. Certainly the additions of Hans-Peter Briegel in midfield and of Danish striker Preben Elkjær Larsen to an attack that already featured the wing play of Pietro Fanna, the creative abilities of Antonio Di Gennaro and the scoring touch of Giuseppe Galderisi were to prove crucial.
To mention a few of the memorable milestones on the road to the scudetto: a decisive win against Juventus F.C. (2-0), with a memorable goal scored by Preben Elkjær Larsen after having lost a boot in a tackle just outside the box, set the stage early in the championship; an away win over Udinese Calcio (5-3) ended any speculation that the team was losing energy at the midway point; three straight wins (including a hard fought 1-0 victory against a strong AS Roma side) served notice that the team had kept its polish and focus intact during their rival's final surge; and a 1-1 draw in Bergamo against Atalanta secured the title with a game in hand.
Hellas Verona finished the year with a 15-13-2 record and 43 points, 4 points ahead of Torino with Internazionale and Sampdoria rounding out the top four spots. This unusual final table of the Serie A (with big teams as Juventus and AS Roma ending up much lower than expected - AC Milan wasn't that successful in those years) has led to many speculations. The 1984/1985 season was the only season when referees were assigned to matches by way of a random draw. Before then each referee had always been assigned to a specific match by a special commission of referees (de 'designatori arbitrali'). After the betting scandal of the early eighties (the 'calcioscommesse' scandal) it was decided to clean up the image of Italian football by assigning referees randomly instead of picking them, in order to clear up all the suspicions and accusations always accompanying Italy's football life. This resulted in a quieter championship and in a completely unexpected final table. In the following season, won again by Juventus, the choice of the referees went back in the hands of the 'designatori arbitrali'. In 2006 a major scandal in Italian football revealed that certain clubs had been illegally influencing the referee selection process, in an attempt to ensure that certain referees were assigned to their matches.
On the European stage
The team made its first European appearance in 1983-1984 in the UEFA Cup and were knocked out in the second round of the tournament. In 1986 Hellas Verona AC were eliminated from the European Cup by fellow Serie A side Juventus F.C. (the title holders after their victory the previous year over Liverpool). In 1988 the team had its best international result when it reached the UEFA Cup quarter-finals with four victories and three draws. The decisive defeat came from German side Werder Bremen.
Recent years
Between Serie A and Serie B
These were more than mere modest achievements for a mid-size city with a limited appeal to fans across the nation. But soon enough financial difficulties caught up with team managers. In 1991 the team folded and was reborn as Verona FC, regularly moving to and fro between Serie A and Serie B for several seasons. In 1995 the name was officially changed back to Hellas Verona FC.
After a three year stay, their last stint in Serie A ended in grief in 2002. That season emerging international talents such as Adrian Mutu, Mauro Camoranesi, Alberto Gilardino, Martin Laursen, Massimo Oddo, Marco Cassetti and coach Alberto Malesani failed to capitalize on an excellent start and eventually dropped into fourth-to-last place for the first time all season on the very last matchday, enforcing relegation into Serie B.
Derby with Chievo Verona
In their last Serie A season, with city rivals Chievo Verona also in the country's premier football league, Verona joined Milan, Rome, Turin and Genoa to become only the fifth Italian city to host a Serie A derby (known as il derby della Scala). The first ever Verona derby came on matchday 11 and saw the city's teams both ranked among the top four in Serie A. The match was won by the Hellas side, 3-2. Chievo gained revenge in the return match in the spring, winning 2-1.
Present
Serie B
Following the 2002 relegation to Serie B, team fortunes continued to slip throughout the decade. In the 2003-04 season Hellas Verona struggled in Serie B and spent most of the season fighting off the unthinkable: a disconcerting relegation to Serie C1. Undeterred, the fans supported their team and a string of late season wins eventually warded off the danger. Over 5000 of them followed Hellas to Como on the final day of the season to celebrate.
In 2004-05 things looked much brighter for the team. After a rocky start Hellas put together a string of results and climbed to third spot. The gialloblù held on to the position until January 2005, when transfers weakened the team, yet they managed to take the battle for Serie A to the last day of the season.
The Serie B 2006-07 seemed to start with good premises due to the club takeover by Pietro Arvedi D'Emilei which ended nine years of controversial rule by chairman Gianbattista Pastorello, heavily contested by the supporters in his late years at Verona. However, Verona was immediately involved in the relegation battle, and Massimo Ficcadenti was replaced in December 2006 by Giampiero Ventura. Despite a recovery in the results, Verona ended in an 18th place, thus being forced to play a two-legged playoff against 19th-placed Spezia in order to avert relegation. A 2-1 away loss in the first leg at La Spezia was followed by a 0-0 home tie, and Verona were relegated to Serie C1 after 64 years of playing between the two highest divisions.
Serie C1 and Lega Pro Prima Divisione
Verona appointed experienced coach Franco Colomba for the new season with the aim to return back to Serie B as soon as possible. However, despite being widely considered the division favourite, the gialloblù spent almost the entire season in last place. After 7 matches club management sacked Colomba in early October and replaced him with youth team coach (and former Verona player) Davide Pellegrini.[1] A new property acquired the club in late 2007, appointing in December Giovanni Galli as new director of football and Maurizio Sarri as new head coach. Halfway through the 2007-2008 season the team remained at the bottom of Serie C1, on the brink of relegation to the fourth level (Serie C2).[2] Club management thus sacked Sarri and brought back Pellegrini. Thanks to a late-season surge the scaligeri managed to avoid direct relegation by qualifying for the relegation playoff, and narrowly averted dropping to Lega Pro Seconda Divisione only in the final game, beating Pro Patria by 2-1 on aggregate.
Fan support remains strong in terms of attendance and season ticket sales, however the cash-strapped team continues to struggle. Fan websites cite team mismanagement as the main cause of the team's current decline. In addition, the success of city rivals Chievo do not help Hellas Verona's cause, since both the city and the team fan base are too small to support a second Serie A team for Verona.
Honours
Serie A / Italian Football Championship:
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- Champions (1): 1984–85
Supporters
Apart from the many local fan clubs whose main role is (for example) to provide a meeting place for fans and friends and organize away trips, since the late 60s many Italian fans rely on organized stadium groups known as Ultras. The main goal is to choreograph fan support with flags, banners, coloured smoke screens, drums, and chanting in unison.
The best-known organized fan group of the team was called Brigate Gialloblù or "BG" (the "yellowblue brigades"). It came together in 1971 and no longer exists as such. Although to this day virtually all fans call themselves BG members when at the Bentegodi, today's hardcore BG group numbers about a few thousand members, mostly grouped under the name "Curva Sud". From producing flags large enough to cover the entire Curva Sud section (about a third of the stadium) to singing Giuseppe Verdi's Aida, the BG (and Hellas fans in general) are one of Italy's most dedicated, imaginative and respected supporters. They were responsible for introducing the British supporting style in Italy, putting aside drums and concentrating on catchy and powerful chants.
Their 'songbook' is Italy's largest, and increasing every season with new songs (although at a slower pace than in the eighties, when new songs were appearing at nearly every home game). These songs are not only meant to support the club, but also to attack and insult the opponents. The BG are known to make themselves no limitations in this task. Everything, from physical defects to family tragedies, is used to make ironic songs meant to abuse an opponent player on the pitch or a rival crowd. And also racist abuse of any kind has been largely used since the early eighties, resulting in the last seasons in several games played behind closed doors. But only a small minority of Hellas supporters are militant fascist or openly racist. The majority uses this kind of imagery and attitude only as a way to provoke, to mark their diversity from the rest of the crowds, and, for some, from the rest of the country. The fact that the same chants are also used against white players who are as well despised by the BG didn't help to prevent sanctions by the authorities, and the crowd is deeply divided nowadays about the opportunity to go on with this sort things. But apart from racism the Verona chants can display a great amount of irony, also about themselves and their team. Also nonsense and church songs are among the crowd favorites when the game starts getting boring or worse than usual.
The main guideline of the BG has been since the beginning "first the Brigate, then the Club". This made so that a relatively big crowd had formed over the years, following the club everywhere without being particularly influenced by the often disappointing results of the team. After the relegation in the Serie C1 in the 2006/2007 season a stunning 10,000 season tickets were sold, almost 4000 more than in the previous season, when Piero Arvedi bought the club in September 2006 from Gianbattista Pastorello, ending the supporters' boycott campaign of the season tickets sales within just a few days from its end.
Most Hellas fans have always kept football and politics apart, but right wing (Verona Front, Hellas Army) and left wing (Rude Boys) groups have existed within the BG, as they do still among today's Hellas fans. Then and now, the wide majority of the fans are joyous and well behaved. However, small groups - among which also include right wing fascist extremists - aim to provoke trouble, cause public outrage and attract attention, regardless of the impact this has on the team.
Repeated incidents throughout the 1970s, and crowd violence in the late 1980s, drew plenty of media attention and Verona was singled out as amongst the worst perpetratraors. Unfortunately similar events occur in many (but not all) Italian stadiums. The founders and "hard-core" groups within the BG did what they could to keep younger members from emulating or even joining the fascist extremists, yet decisive action clearly needed to be taken. After 20 years, in late 1991 the various BG groups unanimously decided to disband themselves completely in order to avoid the attempt of some judges who wanted to put the BG on trial for being a 'criminal organization'.
Today acts of violence are extremely rare and fans attend games to display their affection for Hellas Verona. The large scale police repression of the Ultras movement following the murder of the police officer Filippo Raciti in Catania in February 2007 led to the disband of the organised 'Curva Sud' firm, along with the disappearance of the chant-launching supporters placed at the lower end of the Curva Sud. Chants are now started by the spontaneous initiative of every supporter.
Hellas Verona fans are twinned with the supporters of Fiorentina. The friendship dates back to the mid 80s, when several old viola crowd favourites (Antonio Di Gennaro, Luigi Sacchetti and Luciano Bruni) left Florence and won the scudetto with Hellas Verona. This long lasting relationship is remarkable of the 'unorthodox' attitude of the Hellas fans: Fiorentina supporters are largely left wing oriented, but this doesn't seem to bother both sides. In decades there have never been any tensions related to this difference in political views. They also have 'amicizie' (friendships) with Lazio, Triestina and Sampdoria (in this case only with the 'Ultras Tito Cucchiaroni' group). On international level the most important friendship is that with the Chelsea Headhunters, one of the oldest football friendships in the world, dating back to the second half of the seventies, when the visiting members of the Brigate were even allowed to show their away banner in the notorious Shed End of Chelsea's Stamford Bridge. A large number of the BG songs are taken from the Headhunters' repertoire, with translated and adapted lyrics, often in dialect. When Chelsea played Verona's archrivals Vicenza in the Cup Winners' Cup in 1997, a large number of Hellas Verona supporters was present in the away section of the Stadio Romeo Menti in Vicenza together with the Chelsea fans. Other international friendships are with the Ultras Sur of Real Madrid, the Brigadas Blanquiazules of Espanyol, the Aberdeen supporters in Scotland and the now disbanded Boulogne Boys of Paris Saint Germain.
The gialloblu are bitter rivals of their neighbors Vicenza, Brescia and Atalanta, of the traditional 'big three' Juventus -by them sarcastically nicknamed 'Rubentus' ('Thieventus')-, A.C. Milan (who lost two titles, in 1973 and 1990, by being beaten in the since then so-called 'Fatal Verona' in the last matches of that seasons) and Inter (a long lasting friendship has been broken in the year 2000), and furthermore AS Roma, Genoa C.F.C. and several teams from the South of Italy, most notably Napoli. Virtually all the matches between Verona and Napoli held at the Bentegodi in the eighties and nineties reached the national headlines because of the heavy abuse of the Verona supporters against the Neapolitans, expressed in banners and choruses of racist content, and even the wearing of gasmasks all over the Curva Sud (South Stand).
Notable former players
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Notable coaches
Osvaldo Bagnoli- Giancarlo Cadè
Nils Liedholm- Sergio Maddè
- Alberto Malesani
- Attilio Perotti
- Angelo Piccioli
- Cesare Prandelli
- Ferruccio Valcareggi
Current squad
- As of 2008-10-13[3]
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References
- ↑ "Punch-drunk Verona fire Colomba", Football Italia (2007-10-08). Retrieved on 2007-11-14.
- ↑ League table at betstudy.com
- ↑ "Squadra" (in Italian). Hellas Verona FC. Retrieved on 2008-10-13.
Further reading
- A Season with Verona: Travels Around Italy in Search of Illusion, National Character, and...Goals! by Tim Parks. ISBN 0-09-942267-0
External links
- Official website (Italian)
- Hellastory.net with a complete database, daily updates, thoughtful editorials, and a guestbook (Italian)
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Lega Pro Prima Divisione seasons
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