Serie B makes roster changes and other news from the second division

By: Francesco | May 28th, 2008

Serie B (which I still consider to be Europe’s top second division) has made some changes for next season regarding squad size. Even though they play 42 games in Serie B, lots of squads have very big rosters and most coaches don’t tinker with the line-up often, which culminates in lots of players sitting on the bench all year. Today all Serie B presidents met and decided upon a new rule. This rule will see all Serie B clubs have a mandatory roster size of 19 players, plus 4 “flagship players”, who have to have played at least 3 years in the club’s youth system. They were also thinking about imposing a rule on having a mandatory number of players under 21, but that didn’t come to pass. It should make for an interesting transfer market, as many clubs will have to unload players to satisfy the new rules. More Serie B news after the jump.

This weekend is the last weekend of the Serie B regular season. As we already know, Chievo were promoted to Serie A automatically. Also on the relegation front, the four clubs being sent down to Serie C1 have already been confirmed. They are: Avellino, Ravenna, Spezia, and Cesena. Coming up from Serie C1 are Salernitana and Sassuolo (first time in their history for the small club from Emilia-Romagna, they will share Modena’s Braglia stadium because their stadium only holds 4,000 people), while the two other teams are still being decided as the promotion playoffs are still going on.

The promotion playoff spots have already been decided as well, as Albinoleffe, Brescia, and Pisa have all mathematically qualified for the playoffs, and Lecce and Bologna are fighting for the second automatic promotion place. The Lecce/Bologna duel is actually the most exciting thing in Serie B this weekend. Lecce will play Vicenza (with nothing to play for) at home at the Stadio Via Del Mare. For the Pugliese club to be automatically promoted, they have to beat the Biancorossi and hope that Bologna draws or loses to Pisa at home at the Stadio Dall’Ara. If Bologna wins vs Pisa (who actually want to get a result, because they can move up the table and face Albinoleffe in the playoffs instead of Lecce/Bologna), Bologna gets automatically promoted to Serie A and Lecce have to play the playoffs.

Here is the playoff schedule:

June 4th: 3rd vs. 6th 1st leg; 5th vs. 4th 1st leg
June 8th: 3rd vs. 6th 2nd leg; 5th vs 4th 1st leg
June 11th: Final 1st leg
June 15th: Final 2nd leg

As of right now, the playoffs are: Lecce-Pisa, Albinoleffe-Brescia; but all that can change this weekend.

We will have to see how it turns out.