Football Season Guide

Since their return to the Serie A in 2019/2020, Hellas Verona President Setti adopted a self-destructive attitude regularly selling their best players and providing the managers with always weaker squads. At the end of November 2022 Hellas already seemed doomed for relegation. Coach Gabriele Cioffi had been sacked early on while Salvatore Bocchetti had lost all the games since taking charge. Things changed radically at the start of 2023: Bocchetti was joined at the helm by Mauro Zaffaroni and they managed to bring the team out of quicksand. Having won only 1 out of the last 7, they eventually needed to beat Spezia in the playoffs to avoid the fall. This season should not be too different from the past one for Hellas, although they will have a different man at the helm: after doing well at Lecce, Marco Baroni will replace Bocchetti and Zaffaroni. The transfer campaign was not a very active one yet as they saw some departures in midfield with starting Tameze and back-ups Veloso and Sulemana all gone for pastures new. Solid Hongla returned from loan while confirmed Duda, who well impressed before injuring his knee, is expected to recover sometime. Since they held one of the worst attacks of the past campaign, with only 31 goals scored, Hellas were expected to strengthen their attack but they only hired wingers so far in Mboula, Saponara and re-confirmed Kallon and Braaf. Considering that Henry is still recovering from injury and that Gaich returned to CSKA Moscow, they are in desperate need of an alternative to Djuric, hardly a prolific striker with 1 goal every 338 minutes. Other than that, Amione returning from loan at Sampdoria, could become a protagonist at the back, especially if Hien is sold.