A.S. Bari

Bari

Full name	Associazione Sportiva Bari SpA
Nickname(s)	Galletti (Cockerels), Biancorossi (Whitereds)
Founded	1908
Ground	Stadio San Nicola, Bari, Italy (Capacity: 58,270)
Chairman	Vincenzo Matarrese
Manager	Giampiero Ventura
League	Serie A
2009–10	Serie A, 10th
Home colours Away colours Third colours

Associazione Sportiva Bari is an Italian football club founded in 1908, they are based in Bari, Apulia. The club have spent many seasons bouncing between the top two divisions in Italian football, Serie A and Serie B, and they currently play in the top tier.

During 1927, the original football club representing the city was merged with a team named Liberty Bari, a year following this the new club was merged too, this time with US Ideale; hence the sometimes given foundation date of 1928.

Statistically Bari are the most successful club from the Apulia region, in terms of the all-time Serie A records. They are amongst the elite in Southern Italian football and are ranked 17th in the all-time Serie A records for all of Italy. Notably they won the Mitropa Cup in 1990. Bari also held the British football transfer record, when it paid £ 5.500.000 for David Platt in 1991. It was the most expensive fee paid by a foreign club for a British player for four years.

One of the most notable achievements in the club's history was in the 1996 season, when their forward Igor Protti became the top scorer in the Serie A with 24 goals. The club are known in the wider footballing world for producing Antonio Cassano who was born in Bari, he shone at the club as a youngster.

History

Foot-Ball Club Bari was founded in the city on the 15 January 1908.^[1]. Like the majority of early Italian football clubs, foreign people were involved in the foundation of the club. Amongst the main founders were; German Floriano Ludwig, Swiss Gustavo Kuhn and a native trader of Bari called Giovanni Tiberini.^[2]

FBC Bari originals in 1908.

The first players included many non-Italians, the FBC Bari originals included; founder Ludwig, along with Barther (English), Bach (Swiss), Attoma, Roth (Swiss), Labourdette (Spanish), Jovinet (French), Giordano, Gazagne (French), Randi and Ziegler. Originally the club wore red shirts with white shorts, early on they would play against English sailors at the San Lorenzo field in the San Pasquale area of Bari.

Although the club was founded early on, clubs from the Mezzogiorno were not very well represented in the early Italian football championships and thus Bari did not take part in the early seasons. In fact only Campania had a regional section in the league from that area prior to the First World War. The war would see the original club becoming defunct, before being reorganised under the same name.

By this time other clubs from the city had begun playing too, including; Foot-Ball Club Liberty who originally wore blue and white stripes, they were founded as a dissident club from the original Bari in 1909^[3] and their rivals Unione Sportiva Ideale who wore green and black stripes. In fact it was FBC Liberty who became the first ever side from the Province of Bari to take part in the Italian Football Championship, this was during the 1921–22 CCI season, when the main clubs in the country had a falling out with FIGC.

The following season Ideale became the first side from Bari to progress to the Southern Italian semi-finals round, but lost out to Lazio. All three clubs featured in the championship for the first time in 1924–25 however FBC Bari were relegated, Liberty on the other hand reached the Southern semi-finals before losing out heavily to Alba Roma.

Unione Sportiva Bari

A series of club mergers took place in the city over the course of two years, which would create one united club to represent Bari. The first merger took place between FBC Bari and FBC Liberty, they opted to keep the Bari name and first used it on 6 February 1927 in a match against Audace Taranto.

The whole of Italian football was changing during this period and beginning to become more organised, similar mergers were taking place in Naples, Florence and Rome around the same time. The second part of the Bari merger was competed on 27 February 1928 when FBC Bari merged with US Ideale to create Unione Sportiva Bari. The original US Bari shirts incorporated the stripes of Ideale, with the red and white colours of FBC Bari.

After the Italian Championship of 1928–29, the league system was reorganised and Bari was placed in Serie B. One of their players was called up to the Italian national football team that season for the first time, in the form of Raffaele Costantino, this made Bari the first Serie B club to contribute a player and a scorer to the national side.^[4]

League

The alternate Bari club logo

The previous Bari club logo

The 1930s and 1940s were Bari's golden age, spending much of that time in Serie A with a finish of 7th in 1947 being the best they achieved.

In the 1950s Bari went into a sharp decline and an equally rapid revival towards the end of the decade to spend three more years in Serie A (1958–61). Stars of the team in this period included Biagio Catalano and Raúl Conti. The club return to Serie A twice more in this period (1963–64 and 1969–70) with the latter proving especially harrowing with only 11 goals scored, the lowest of any top-flight club. In 1974 Bari descended to Serie C, finishing that season with only 12 goals scored and 26 conceded in 38 games.

By the late 1970s Bari were back in Serie A and on something of an upward swing, narrowly missing promotion in 1982. They managed promotion to Serie A in 1985 and acquired English players Gordon Cowans and Paul Rideout, but they were unable to prevent an instant return to Serie B. A return to Serie A in 1989 with stars including stalwart defender Giovanni Loseto, midfielder Pietro Maiellaro and Brazilian striker João Paulo saw a respectable 10th place finish in 1990, their last season at the Della Vittoria. The following season saw Bari move to the San Nicola stadium, built for the 1990 World Cup, but by 1992– despite the signing of David Platt- they would be relegated once more.

Promotion in 1994 saw another two-year stay in Serie A with Igor Protti a regular scorer, and another promotion in 1997 saw the emergence of promising youngsters like Nicola Ventola, Gianluca Zambrotta and Diego De Ascentis. This time they managed a four-year stay in Serie A under the guidance of Eugenio Fascetti, despite his uneasy relationship with many sections of the club's support. The club has since had a generally indifferent spell in Serie B. However, having been near the top of the Serie B table for much of the 2008–09 season they gained promotion to Serie A on May 8, 2009, under the guidance of Antonio Conte.

Current squad

As of 13 January, 2010^[5]

Note: Flags indicate national team as has been defined under FIFA eligibility rules. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.

No. Position Player 1 GK Jean-François Gillet (captain) 4 MF Sergio Almirón 5 DF Andrea Masiello 6 FW José Ignacio Castillo 7 MF Emanuel Rivas 9 MF Daniele De Vezze 10 FW Barreto 12 GK Ilario Lamberti 14 MF Alessandro Gazzi 15 DF Nicola Belmonte 16 MF Massimo Donati 17 MF Salvatore Masiello 20 FW Vitali Kutuzov

No. Position Player 21 DF Alessandro Parisi 25 GK Daniele Padelli (on loan from Sampdoria) 23 FW Antonio Langella 89 FW Armando Visconti 90 MF Edgar Álvarez -- MF Nico Pulzetti (on loan from A.S. Livorno) -- FW Abdelkader Ghezzal -- FW Francesco Caputo -- MF Michele Rinaldi -- DF Andrea Raggi (on loan from Palermo) -- DF Macro Rossi (on loan from Parma) -- MF Jaime Romero (on loan from Udinese) -- FW Marco D'Alessandro (on loan from A.S. Roma)

Out on loan

Note: Flags indicate national team as has been defined under FIFA eligibility rules. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.

No. Position Player FW Alessandro Marotta (at Lucchese)

Players

See also Category:A.S. Bari players.

Presidential history

The official presidential history of Bari, since 1929 until the present day.

Managerial history

See also Category:A.S. Bari managers.

Bari have had many managers and trainers, some seasons they have had co-managers running the team, here is a chronological list of them from 1928 onwards:^[6]

Name Nationality Years Egri Erbstein 1928–29 Josef Uridil 1929–30 Hajdu 1930–31 Árpád Weisz 1931–32 Egri Erbstein Lászlo Barr 1932–33 Tony Cargnelli 1933–34 Engelbert Koenig 1934–35 András Kuttik 1935–36 Tony Cargnelli 1936–38 Jozsef Ging 1938–39 András Kuttik 1939 Raffaele Costantino 1939–40 Luigi Ferrero 1940–41 András Kuttik 1941 Raffaele Costantino 1941 Stanislao Klein 1941–42 Raffaele Costantino 1942–43 Giovanni Vanicsek 1943 Raffaele Costantino 1944–45 András Kuttik 1946 Raffaele Costantino 1946–47 Janos Nekadoma 1947 András Kuttik 1947–48 Ferenc Plemich 1948 András Kuttik 1948 Raffaele Costantino 1948–49 Ferenc Plemich 1949 György Sárosi Francesco Capocasale 1949–50 Raffaele Costantino 1950 Francesco Capocasale 1950 Federico Allasio 1950 Ambrogio Alfonso 1950–51 Mario Sandron 1951 Paolo Giammarco 1951 Pietro Piselli 1951 Raffaele Costantino 1951–52 Vincenzo Marsico 1952 Raffaele Sansone 1952–53 Francesco Capocasale 1953–56 Federico Allasio 1956–58 Paolo Tabanelli 1958–59

Name Nationality Years Francesco Capocasale 1959–61 Onofrio Fusco 1961 Luis Carniglia 1961 Federico Allasio 1961–62 Onofrio Fusco 1962 Pietro Magni 1962–63 Tommaso Maestrelli 1963–64 Paolo Tabanelli 1964 Francesco Capocasale 1964–65 Onofrio Fusco 1965 Ugo Lamanna 1965–66 Filippo Calabrese 1966 Lauro Toneatto 1966–69 Oronzo Pugliese 1969–70 Carlo Matteucci 1970 Lauro Toneatto 1970–72 Carlo Regalia 1972–74 Luciano Pirazzini 1974–75 Gianni Seghedoni 1975–76 Giuseppe Pozzo 1976 Giancomo Losi 1976–78 Mario Santececca 1978–79 Giulio Corsini 1979 Enrico Catuzzi 1979 Antonio Renna 1979–81 Enrico Catuzzi 1981–83 Luigi Radice 1983 Bruno Bolchi 1983–86 Enrico Catuzzi 1986–88 Getano Salvemini 1988–92 Zbigniew Boniek 1992 Sebastiao Lazaroni 1992–93 Giuseppe Materazzi 1993–96 Eugenio Fascetti 1996–00 Arcangelo Sciannimanico 2001–02 Attilio Perotti 2002–03 Marco Tardelli 2003–04 Giuseppe Pillon 2004 Guido Carboni 2004–06 Rolando Maran 2006 Giuseppe Materazzi 2006–07 Antonio Conte 2007–09 Giampiero Ventura 2009–

Honours

Serie B: 3

• Champions: 1934–35, 1941–42, 2008–09
• Runners-up: 1930–31, 1933–34 (without promotion), 1957–58, 1962–63, 1988–89, 1993–94
• Other Promotions: 1927–28, 1968–69, 1984–85, 1996–97

Mitropa Cup: 1

• Winners: 1990

References

External links

• Official Website (Italian)