Football Season Guide

The fairy tale of Chievo Verona, the little David fighting against the big Goliaths of the Serie A, seems to have come to an end during the summer. In fact, the Flying Donkeys, after achieving a fundamental safety in the last weeks of the season, were involved in a financial scandal. They were accused of falsifying the figures in the trading of players and risked being relegated to the Serie B. They were given some sort of pardon but Crotone, who ended up in the bottom three last May, appealed against such a decision and asked to play in Serie A in their stead. While, at the moment of writing, there are no news on the issue, Chievo Verona prepare themselves for the new campaign. Coach Lorenzo D’Anna, who led the team to salvation after replacing Rolando Maran at the end of April, was confirmed at the helm of the team. Unfortunately for him, Chievo Verona live on an extremely tight budget and this season was no exception. First of all, they had to sustain some big blows in terms of departures. Some old giants like Massimo Gobbi, Dario Dainelli and Alessandro Gamberini were all let go while Roberto Inglese returned to Napoli, who had acquired him in the past campaign. Another big loss is undoubtedly represented by Lucas Castro’s sale to Cagliari and by Samuel Bastien’s return to Belgium. Having lost all those players, Chievo Verona first tried to retain a few key men from last season like Emanuele Giaccherini from Napoli or Marius Stepinski from Nantes. Then, they opted to sign a free agent like Filip Djordjevic, who had had a positive first season at Lazio but, with the passing of time, had eventually ended forgotten in the sidelines. Other than that, they mostly saw the return of promising youths from loans all over Italy. Chievo Verona clearly have an incomplete squad at the moment and they need to sign at least one experienced player for each department.