Football Season Guide

For the first time in their rather short history, Benevento reached Serie A following a successful play-off in Serie B. During their first participation in the second flight of the Italian football, they incredibly achieved promotion despite ending the regular season only in 5th place. Miracles really can happen. They are now hoping to achieve another incredible feat by securing what looks like an impossible salvation. Marco Baroni, the architect of their arrival in the top flight, was confirmed at the helm and this is certainly a positive thing. Even though he has no experience whatsoever at this level, he lead Juventus' junior team for some years and he is well thought of as a coach. It remains to be seen what he is going to do with a rather new group of players though. Benevento can usually count on a very tight budget and so they need to rely on the loans from other bigger clubs. This time around makes no exception. In fact, the coach will not be able to count on players like Alessio Cragno, Filippo Falco, Marko Pajač and Ricardo Bagadur, who returned to their parent clubs. Enrico Pezzi and Daniele Buzzegoli were not deemed experienced enough for the big jump to the top flight. In terms of new signings, the management opted for a group of young players with experience in the league and, mostly, in need of some redemption. The likes of Danilo Cataldi, who spent some awful months at Genoa, Andrea Coda, who got relegated with Empoli, and Marco D’Alessandro, who never managed to shine at Atalanta. Also, Vid Belec and Gaetano Letizia, who failed to reach promotion with Carpi by an inch. All have some reason for giving the best they can at Benevento. The Wizards should adopt a rather aggressive 4-4-2 formation with Belec in goal, Letizia and Gianluca Di Chiara as the full-backs and Fabio Lucioni and Andrea Costa in the heart of the defence. Andrea Ciricetti and D’Alessandro should be the owners of the flanks while Cataldi and Nicolas Viola will play in the middle of the park. In the attack, Massimo Coda should join Fabio Ceravolo.