Chievo Verona have enjoyed a fairy tale ride to the top of the Italian league
Paddy Agnew in Rome
A couple of seasons ago, when Hellas Verona clashed in a second division derby with little Chievo Verona, the fans of the better-known team taunted their upstart rivals with a derisive banner: ”When donkeys can fly, then Chievo and Verona will meet in Serie A.”
Right now, football experts all over Italy are ducking low and often to avoid the flying donkeys with newly promoted Chievo on top of the Serie A table. With eight games played, Chievo are four points clear of Milan and Internazionale. After what would ordinarily be considered an excellent start to their season, Hellas are seven points behind in eighth.
Inevitably, the rise of Chievo has prompted an overdose of fanciful Italian media analysis, with ”fairy tale” and ”Cinderella” being the not-too-original but most-used epithets. This sort of talk does not appeal much to their coach Luigi del Neri, himself enjoying a first season in the top flight though he was appointed by Serie A Empoli three years ago, only to be sacked 30 days later before the season had begun.
”Would people stop talking all this saccharine stuff about fairy tales?” he said after the recent 1-0 victory over Parma. ”There is no fable here. Chievo is the result of hard work, on a daily basis.”
But the rise of tiny Chievo is extraordinary enough to be worth a little hyperbole. Fifteen years ago they were adrift in Italy’s amateur wilderness, before promotion in 1986 to the regional fourth division, C2. Three years later they were promoted again, to Serie C1.
When Chievo’s president Luca Campedelli, head of the Italian cake-making giant Paluani, appointed the local factory worker Alberto Malesani as manager in 1993 the new coach was so pessimistic that he demanded a guaranteed job on the cake production line should things turn sour. Instead Malesani, having guided Chievo into Serie B and to the brink of the big time, was promoted before his charges, moving to Fiorentina and now arch-rivals Hellas.
Hard work, the enthusiasm and energy of the debutant, lack of pressure and a less demanding calendar than their more famous rivals, who must play midweek European games, go some way to explaining the Chievo success story.
Such analysis, however, hardly does justice to a club that is a David in a world of Goliaths. Chievo have 4700 season ticket holders not bad when you consider that the Veronese suburb of Chievo has fewer than 4000 residents but the likes of Milan, Roma and Inter can all boast more than 10 times as many paid-up fans.
Whereas Chievo will be delighted with the estimated 5m they will make this season from television rights, Juventus are currently on a five-year pay-TV deal worth at least 12 times that much, not counting Champions League earnings.
Such inequities, however, mean little when Chievo take to the field. They make the most of a hard-running, hard-chasing, combative style that saw them pick up 22 yellow cards in their first five games. ”Our way of playing is so simple,” says Del Neri. ”We have a solid team and a great midfield. If we have to defend, we do so with at least eight players.”
Chievo have achieved much but spent little. The team currently leading Serie A is almost identical to last season’s, with only two new signings picked regularly .
Many of the journeymen professionals that make up the team, such as the influential captain and former Juventus midfielder Eugenio Corini, have a point to prove after previous Serie A disappointments. Others, such as the talented Christian Manfredini, have become inebriated with the unfamiliar elixir of week-in, week-out clashes with the Shevchenkos, Del Pieros and Batistutas of Serie A.
Speaking after the win against Parma, Manfredini asked the question on everyone’s lips: ”At this point, you have to wonder if we’re really that good or are things not going well for the other teams.”
”Of course we’re not thinking of finishing top,” says Campedelli. ”We’re happy now. Just let us be happy.” And watch out for flying donkeys.