Arriverderci Reggina

Remember how the Champions League final being held in Rome would interfere with Lazio’s match with Reggina? Well they played the game yesterday, and Lazio won 1-0, with a goal from Mauro Zarate. Unfortunately the loss condemned Reggina to Serie B for the first time in 7 years. Reggina actually surpassed expectations by sticking around in Serie A this long, especially since they were only promoted to paradise for the first time in 1999. They really have performed annual miracles avoiding the drop. We’ll go through the Reggina story after the jump.

For those of you that do not know, Reggina is from the city of Reggio di Calabria, the capital of the Reggio Calabria province in the Calabria region. Reggio di Calabria is a city of 185,000 people and it is the southernmost place on the Italian peninsula. From Reggio di Calabria you can look over the strait of Messina and see Sicily.

Reggina was founded in 1914 as A.S. Reggina and spent their whole history bouncing around the lower leagues and then becoming a stable Serie C/Serie B team. Even though they only reached Serie A for the first time in 1999, they did come close on many occasions throughout their history. In 1986 the club was bought by new owners and given the current name of Reggina Calcio.

In 1992, Pasquale “Lillo” Foti, already an administrator for the club, took over as president and owner. Under Foti’s leadership the club went from Serie C1 to becoming a stable Serie B club in the late 90’s and eventually becoming promotion contenders.

Starting the 1998/99 season, the Amaranto had a competitive roster with experienced players that could do the job in Serie B. Players like Paolo Orlandoni and Emanuele Belardi, Bruno Cirillo, Salvatore Aronica, Davide Bombardini, Francesco Cozza, and Davide Possanzini. The Amaranto finished in 4th place (back then there was no play-off system, so they were automatically promoted) and reached Serie A for the first time.

In their first season, led by players like Andrea Pirlo, Roberto Baronio, and Mohammed Kallon, the Amaranto surprised everyone and avoided relegation. The next season wasn’t as good and they were relegated, but they bounced right back up to return to Serie A for the 2002/2003 season. From there, Reggina never looked back and avoided relegation every season until this year. The 2006-2007 season was a real miracle. Even with a -15 points penalty to start the season, the squad led by Walter Mazzarri played their hearts out, quickly clearing the points penalty and finishing the season in 10th place (led by the goals of Nicola Amoruso and Rolando Bianchi).

The success of Reggina over all these years is particularly surprising especially since Reggina are a selling club. Every summer President Foti puts together a squad filled with experienced veterans, promising youngsters, and virtual unknowns. Whoever impresses usually gets bigger clubs knocking on the door, and with a good offer Foti happily sells them off and invests the money into more players that fit those 3 categories. So many players have passed through Reggio Calabria before going on to higher pastures. However this season it looked like Foti finally got it wrong. The squad was not Serie A-calibre at all, and at the helm was an inexperienced manager like Nevio Orlandi. The attack was good with Bernardo Corradi (who scored 10 goals but had many injury problems) and Franco Brienza supported by Francesco Cozza, but the defense was way too porous and the midfield lacked creativity besides Edgar Barreto (who I expect to be bought by a Serie A team this summer).

So it will be a little sad to see a Serie A with no Reggina next season, but I’m pretty sure they will be the force of Serie B and most probably only spend 1 year removed from paradise. Of course that all depends who will stay in Serie B and who will be bought by Serie A clubs, but I’m sure Foti will put a good squad together.

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Category: Players, Rumors & News, Serie A, Serie B