Saturday, June 24, 2017
Wednesday, June 21, 2017
Sunday, June 18, 2017
Saturday, June 17, 2017
Second Division or Serie B. 20-team
league, mostly consisting of former first division members. Small
fry, though. Two exceptions: Lazio, which decline after 1975 lead out
of Serie A, and Sampdoria. However, one should be careful with
Sampdoria: their familiar name was established later in the 1980s.
They were still relatively unknown club, more likely to be found in
the second division – the bigger local club was till Genoa. Anyhow,
4 teams were relegated and three promoted. One hopeless outsider this
season and two more just hopeless. Ten clubs tried hard to avoid the
dreaded the 4th relegation spot – that is, more than
half the league was preoccupied with mere survival. But 7 teams
competed for the top spots – not bad, a tough, if not particularly
exciting, race.
Once upon a time Pescara was in first
division, but those days were gone – tremendously weak, they were
last in the league with 17 points.
Compared to Pescara, SPAL were giants
with their 28 points. Which translated only into a meek and
half-hearted battle for 18th place. Lost promptly... the
great years of SPAL were very long ago, almost forgotten and it had
been steady downhill pretty much since the mid-1960s. Now even second
division was too much for them.
Brescia won the battle with SPAL with
31 points. Which hardly meant anything... not only they finished 18th
, but had no chance to escape relegation almost from the beginning of
the season. Their horrible season was a bit of a surprise, though.
Ten teams – half the league! -
generally fought to escape the last relegation spot and at the end 2
points was the difference between 8th place and
relegation. Goal-difference decided final places, including the 16th
place, which meant going down to third level. Perhaps head-to-head
records determined final positions, for goal-difference clearly was
not decisive factor: four teams with 36 points, three of them with -7
goal-difference and one with -6. And that team went down...
Standing
from left:
BRUNO (all.), CERAMICOLA, MERLI, FAVERO, PARLANTI, MARTINI, PETROVIC,
SALTUTTI, DEOGRATIAS, BUCCILLI, TRAINI, DI GIOVANNI (vice
all.)
Crouching: ALBANI (magazz.), BALDONI, DONATELLI, SARTORI, CORVASCE, BILARDI, NEGRISOLO, MAZZONI, SOCI (massagg.)
Crouching: ALBANI (magazz.), BALDONI, DONATELLI, SARTORI, CORVASCE, BILARDI, NEGRISOLO, MAZZONI, SOCI (massagg.)
Poor
Rimini... they won 11 matches, 2 more than Pistoiese and equal to
Cavese and Foggia. They outscored all their rivals and by far with 39
goals – the second best in this group, Pistoiese, scored only 31.
They had the best goal-difference of the four... and they were 16th
and out.
The
luckiest of those 4 teams was Foggia – 14th.
Almost joining Brescia on the way down, but surviving at the end.
Four
other teams ended with 37 points, fretting to the end of course.
Cremonese
was 11th
and obove them was the only team with positive goal-difference
finishing bellow 8th
place. The name would be more than surprising today:
Lazio.
37 points, 38-35 goal-difference. In the middle of second division,
but lucky to avoid relegation. Surprising today, but not so back then
– Lazio was hardly an impressive name before 1970, more likely to
play exactly second division than top flight, and the successful
1970s were more of an exception than the rule. But there were no new
Cinaglias and Wilsons, coming from the foggy Albion, and the club
sunk at the end of the decade – that is, for many, going back to
where “The Eagles” belonged. And barely surviving even that. They
were 10th.
A
point above were two teams – well, this is already the upper half
of the final table, but remember: 38 points was only 2 points more
than what relegated Rimini had! Survival, not comfort.
Catania
was 9th,
losing 8th
place on goal-difference.
And
Sambenedettese was 8th
– the highest placed of the those trying to escape relegation and
the one of the best goal-difference among them: 38-33. They were,
with Lazio, the only 2 teams of the lower 12 teams ending with
positive goal-difference.
Standing
from left: Zenga, Caccia, Bogoni, Cavazzini, Pedrazzini, Garbuglia.
First
row: Speggiorin, Falcetta, Ranieri, Cagni, Colasanto.
Recognize
a name? Well, nobody knew this guy yet. Walter Zenga – one could
say he and his teammates did well this year. After all, they were
8th...
but the final table looks prettier than reality: the boys could have
been relegated just as easily.
A
strange season – practically no comfortable and disinterested
mid-table teams, but sharp division – 13 teams fought to avoid
relegation and the other 7 – to get promotion. 6 points divided 1st
from 7th.
Six teams finished with equal points.
Palermo
was last of the favourites – 42 points and 52-42 goal-difference.
The photo is misleading – the official final table places them 7th,
not 6th
– and there was no real reason to be 6th,
if goal-difference is considered – the higher placed team had
better one. Palermo, however, scored the most goals this season and
was the only teams scoring more than 50 goals in the championship.
Which is quite telling... 52 goals in 38 games is nothing to brag
about and that was the highest number.
Perugia
was 6th
– also 42 points, but their 37-26 record was just a goal better
than Palermo's: +11. Was that the final criteria is hard to tell –
it was not at the bottom of the league, so why here? May be
head-to-head results determined positions.
Varese
was 5th
with 45 points and 42-30. Again, worse goal-difference seemingly
placed them lower than Bari.
Bari
- 4th
with 45 points and 47-33. They and those bellow them lost the race by
little, by they did.
Sampdoria
ended 3rd,
losing second place on goal-difference. 47 points and 41-25. Not
exactly great performance, one may think, but it was enough to get
them promotion. And that was all that mattered – second league
champions may be sweet, but much sweeter was to go up and they
achieved that.
Pisa
was second with slightly better record than Sampdoria: 45 points and
47-26. Well done.
And
lastly – the champions. Hellas Verona. First with 48 points from 17
wins, 14 ties. 7 games were lost – more than double the number of
Pisa, which lost only 3. Frankly, Verona – there was no reason to
call them Hellas Verona yet – did not excel in anything, but
squirreled most points somewhat and finished at the top.
Standing
from left: Gibellini, Penzo, Di
Gennaro,
Lelj, Cavasin, Garella.
First row: Fedele (cap.), Odorizzi, Emidio Oddi, Manueli, Tricella.
There
was no reason to pay much attention to Verona at the time – the
league was not great, promotion was a matter of luck to a point, and
Verona was a club nobody heard of. Great for them, but in terms of
Italian football getting stronger... hardly anything optimistic.
Verona looked like accidentally promoted team – one-time wonder at
best, most likely to be relegated in the next season and forgotten.
And a glance of the final table supported such a view: it was the
usual doggy, boring, stifled Italian football from the late 1960s and
the 1970s. Few goals and plenty of ties: only one team had fewer than
10 ties and this team was dead last. In the same time Pisa, 2nd
and promoted to first division, tied 23 matches! Reggiana – 21! 13
teams scored 1 or less goal-per-game average. Not a single team
managed to win 50% of their games – the highest number was 17 wins,
shared by Verona and Sampdoria. So to see some nobodies winning the
championship was hardly a positive sign – rather, it was a
pessimistic sign, suggesting general weakness. Lazio barely escaped
relegation, Brescia relegated... how good Verona could be in view of
that? Not much. Some guys named Tricella and Di Gennaro? And who
exactly were they? But it was fantastically happy ending at Verona,
they went up – let them enjoy the moment. And prove pessimists
wrong eventually.
Wednesday, June 14, 2017
Sunday, June 11, 2017
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