| Full name | Associazione Calcio ChievoVerona SrL | |||
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| Nickname(s) | Gialloblu (Yellow-Blues), Mussi Volanti ("Flying Donkeys" in Venetian language), Ceo ("Chievo" in Venetian) |
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| Founded | 1929 | |||
| Ground | Stadio Marc'Antonio Bentegodi, Verona, Italy (Capacity: 38,402 [1]) |
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| President | Luca Campedelli | |||
| Head Coach | Domenico Di Carlo | |||
| League | Serie A | |||
| 2010–11 | Serie A, 11th | |||
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Associazione Calcio ChievoVerona[2] (more commonly called ChievoVerona or simply Chievo (Italian pronunciation: [ˈkieːvo])) is a professional Italian football club named after and based in Chievo, a suburb of 2,800 inhabitants in Verona, Veneto, and owned by Paluani, a cake company and the inspiration for their original name, Paluani Chievo. The club is nicknamed alternatively Gialloblu, Mussi volanti or Ceo, and shares the 38,402 seater Marc'Antonio Bentegodi stadium with its cross-town rivals Hellas Verona.
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The team was founded in 1929 by a small number of football fans from the small borough of Chievo, a Verona neighbourhood. Initially the club was not officially affiliated to the Italian Football Federation but played several amateur tournament and friendly matches under the denomination "O.N.D. Chievo", a title imposed by the fascist regime. The club's formal debut in an official league was on 8 November 1931. The team colours at the time were blue and white. Chievo disbanded in 1936 because of economic woes but returned to play in 1948 after World War II, being registered in the regional league of "Seconda Divisione" (Second Division). In 1957 the team moved to the "Carlantonio Bottagisio" parish field, where they played until 1986. In 1959, after the restructuring of the football leagues, Chievo was admitted to play the "Seconda Categoria" (Second Category), a regional league placed next-to-last in the Italian football pyramid. That year, Chievo changed its name to "Cardi Chievo", after a new sponsor, and was quickly promoted to the "Prima Categoria", from which it experienced its first-ever relegation in 1962.
In 1964, Luigi Campedelli, a businessman and owner of the Paluani company, was named new Chievo chairman. Under Campedelli's presidency, Chievo climbed through the entire Italian football pyramid, reaching the Serie D after the 1974/1975 season. Under the name "Paluani Chievo", the team was promoted to Serie C2 in 1986. As a consequence of promotion, Chievo was forced to move to the Stadio Marcantonio Bentegodi, the main venue in Verona; another promotion, to Serie C1, followed in 1989. In 1990, the team changed its name to its current one, "A.C. ChievoVerona".
In 1992, President Luigi Campedelli, who had returned at the helm of the club two years before, died of a heart attack, and his son Luca Campedelli, aged just 23, became the new and youngest chairman of an Italian professional football club. Campedelli promoted Giovanni Sartori to Director of Football and named Alberto Malesani as the new head coach. Under Malesani, the team astonishingly won the Serie C1 and was promoted to Serie B, where city rival Hellas Verona was playing at the time. In 1997, after Malesani signed for Fiorentina, Silvio Baldini was appointed the new head coach. The following season, with Domenico Caso as the coach, saw the first dismissal of a coach during the presidency of Luca Campedelli, with Caso being fired and replaced with Lorenzo Balestro.
In 2000/2001 Luigi Delneri was signed as coach and led Chievo, by virtue of its third-place finish in Serie B, to promotion to Serie A, the first time in the team's history that it had reached the top tier of Italian football.
In its 2001/2002 Serie A debut season Chievo, who were most critics' choice for an instant return to Serie B, became the surprise team in the league, playing often spectacular and entertaining football and even leading the league for six consecutive weeks. The club finally ended the season with a highly respectable fifth place finish, qualifying the team to play in the UEFA Cup.
In 2002/2003, Chievo debuted at the European level but were eliminated in the first round by Red Star Belgrade. The team finished the Serie A season in seventh place, again proving itself one of the better Serie A teams. The 2003/2004 season, the last with Delneri at the helm, saw Chievo finish in ninth place.
The 2004/2005 season is remembered as one of the toughest ever in Chievo's history. Mario Beretta, a Serie A novice from Ternana, was named the coach but, after a good start which brought Chievo to a third place behind Juventus and AC Milan, the team slowly lost position in the Serie A table. Three matches before the end of the season Chievo was third from last, a position which would see it relegated to Serie B. As a last resort Beretta was fired and Maurizio D'Angelo, a former Chievo player, was appointed temporarily to replace him as coach. Morale improved, and two wins and a tie from the final three matches proved just enough to keep Chievo in Serie A.
In 2005/2006, Giuseppe Pillon of Treviso FBC was appointed as new coach. The team experienced a return to the successful Delneri era, both in style of play and results, which resulted in Chievo ending the season in a seventh place and gaining a place in the next UEFA Cup. However, because of the football scandal involving several top-class teams, all of which finished higher than Chievo in the 2005/2006 season, the Flying Donkeys were awarded a place in the next Champions League preliminary phase.
On 14 July 2006, the verdict in the scandal was made public. Juventus, AC Milan and Fiorentina, who had all originally qualified for the 2006–07 Champions League, and Lazio, who had originally qualified for the 2006–07 UEFA Cup, were all banned from UEFA competition for the 2006/07 season, although AC Milan were allowed to enter the Champions League after their appeal to FIGC. Chievo took up a place in the third qualifying stage of the competition along with AC Milan and faced Bulgarian side Levski Sofia. Chievo lost the first leg 2–0 in Sofia and managed a 2–2 home draw on the second leg and were eliminated by a 4–2 aggregate score with Levski advancing to the Champions League group stage. As a Champions League third round qualifying loser, Chievo was given a place in the UEFA Cup final qualifying round. On 25 August 2006 Chievo was drawn to face Portuguese Braga. The first leg, played on 14 September in Braga, ended in a shock 2–0 win for the Portuguese side. The return match, played on 28 September in Verona, although won by Chievo 2–1 resulted in a 3–2 aggregate loss and the club's elimination from the competition.
On 16 October 2006, following a 1–0 defeat against Torino F.C., head coach Giuseppe Pillon was fired, and replaced by Luigi Delneri, one of the original symbols of the miracle Chievo, who had led the club to Serie A in 2002.
On 27 May 2007, the last match day of the 2006–07 Serie A season, Chievo was one of five teams in danger of falling into the last undecided relegation spot. Needing only a tie against Catania, a direct competitor in the relegation battle, Chievo lost 2–0 playing on a neutral field in Bologna. Wins by Parma, Siena and Reggina condemned Chievo to Serie B for the 2007–08 season after six seasons in the senior league.
Even as a relatively successful Serie A team the club, which averages only 4-5000 fans and is kept afloat mainly by money from television rights, does not have the same level of fan support as Hellas – the real "Gialloblu" team of Verona. The difference between the clubs is high-lighted during local derby games played at the clubs' shared stadium when, for Chievo's "home" fixtures, the Chievo fans are located in away end of the stadium.
Chievo bounced back quickly from the disappointment of their relegation on the last matchday of 2006/07, going in search of an immediate promotion back to the top flight. After the expected departure of several top-quality players including Semioli, Lanna, Brighi, Sammarco, Bogdani the manager Delneri also parted ways with the club. Giuseppe Iachini replaced him and the captain, Lorenzo D'Anna, gave way to Sergio Pellissier at the end of the transfer window. A new squad was constructed, most notably including the arrivals of mid-fielders Maurizio Ciaramitaro and Simone Bentivoglio, defender César (César Cervo de Luca) and forward Antimo Iunco. This new incarnation of the 'gialloblu' were crowned Winter Champions (along with Bologna), en route to a 41st matchday promotion after a 1–1 draw at Grosseto left them four points clear of third-place Lecce with one match remaining. In addition to winning promotion they were conferred with the "Ali della Vittoria" trophy on the final matchday of the season, their first league title of any kind in fourteen years.
In their first season back to the top flight, Chievo immediately struggled in the league resulting in the dismissal of Iachini in November and his replacement with former Parma boss Domenico Di Carlo.[3] After Di Carlo's appointment, Chievo managed a remarkable resurgence that led the gialloblu out of the relegation zone after having collected just 9 points from their first 17 matches. Highlight matches included a 3–0 defeat of Lazio (who then won the 2008–09 Coppa Italia title) at the Stadio Olimpico, and a thrilling 3–3 draw away to Juventus in which captain and long-time Chievo striker Sergio Pellissier scored a late equaliser to complete his first career hat-trick. A series of hard-fought draws against top clubs Roma, Inter and Genoa in the final stretch of the season solidified Ceo's position outside the drop zone and Serie A status was finally confirmed on matchday 37 with a home draw against Bologna. A largely unchanged lineup earned safety the following season with 4 matchdays to spare, and Chievo is therefore a part of the inaugural Lega Calcio Serie A in 2010–11, their third consecutive season (and ninth season in the last ten years) in the top flight of Italian football.
Note: Flags indicate national team as has been defined under FIFA eligibility rules. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.
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Note: Flags indicate national team as has been defined under FIFA eligibility rules. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.
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The club's original colours were blue and white and not the current blue and yellow. The club's historic nickname is gialloblu (from the club colors of yellow and blue) although throughout Italian football the team recognised by most fans as "Gialloblu" are the original team from Verona – "Hellas Verona". The club is more often referred to today as the mussi volanti ("flying donkeys" in the Verona dialect of Venetian). Local supporters often call the club simply Ceo, which is Veronese for Chievo. The "flying donkeys" nickname was originally a derogatory term from a match chant sung by fans from crosstown rivals Hellas Verona, which said that "donkeys would fly before Chievo made it to Serie A". However, with later successes by Chievo and contemporaneous Serie B and Serie C1 struggles for Hellas Verona, Chievo fans have now largely embraced the nickname as a badge of honour.
The current club crest represents Cangrande I della Scala, an ancient seignor from Verona.
At the end of the 2008/09 season, Chievo had an average crowd attendance of 13,352.
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