Football Season Guide

49 years after their last participation in the top flight of the Italian football, most of which was spent in the third tier, SPAL succeeded in reaching promotion to the Serie A thanks to an outstanding campaign in Serie B which saw them winning the league against all odds. SPAL, who in 1960 actually finished 5th in Serie A, were usually known for providing Italian football with an array of young and promising players, often on loan from the big clubs, and their Serie B campaign stood there to confirm so. In fact, they achieved their successes mostly thanks to some rather unknown players. For such reason, the management spent the summer trying to considerably strengthen the squad at disposal of coach Leonardo Semplici. He was capable of several triumphs in the lower leagues but has utterly no experience in Serie A, not even as a player. Thus, several players, who had given a major contribution to their promotion, were let go. This is certainly the case of Mariano Arini, Cristiano Del Grosso, Simone Pontisso, Kevin Bonifazi, Paolo Ghiglione, Michele Castagnetti and Gianmarco Zigoni, to name a few. Counting on a very tight budget, to match those departures, they had to acquire several players on loan but not all with an extensive experience in the league. However, their first success is that they managed to keep the Italian junior international Alex Meret, on loan from Udinese. He is one of the most promising goalkeepers in the country and was decisive in the past season. Alfred Gomis arrived on loan from Torino, after a few seasons spent around the peninsula and he is expected to act as Meret's deputy in goal. Coach Semplici usually adopts a 3-5-2 or a 3-4-2-1 formation, having preferred them to the classic 4-3-3 he tended to field at the beginning of his career. The new-comer Marios Oikonomou, whose past season at Bologna was not a memorable one, Dabelo Felipe, who had a good campaign with Udinese after some troubled times, and Sauli Vaisanen from AIK will all be contending for the back three alongside the confirmed Francesco Vicari and Michele Cremonesi. Federico Mattiello from Juventus, who hopes to become a protagonist again on the pitch after two years spent injured, and Pa Konate, also from Sweden, could represent the alternatives to Manuel Lazzari and Filippo Costa, from Chievo Verona, on the flanks of the midfield. Meanwhile, the newcomers Alberto Grassi and Federico Viviani should be contending with the confirmed Luca Mora and Pasquale Schiattarella in the middle. In the attack, the once-promising Alberto Paloschi will aim at redeeming the past disastrous campaigns with Swansea City and Atalanta respectively. He should earn himself a starting place with Mirco Antenucci or the solid and reliable Sergio Floccari partnering him. SPAL still seem to be a bit of a work-in-progress and, not too surprisingly, they are on the hunt for valid alternatives both for the attack and the defence where they lack some quality.