I asked for people to give me some ideas for articles that weren’t just game coverage yesterday and the overwhelming tenor of responses has fallen into a bucket I’ve titled “fun/uplifting” and I’ll get
to those stories. Promise. Really quick, though, I want to look at the historical precedents of teams that have opened the season without a win through the first 15 Serie A games. So yeah, buckle up. It’s grim.
In the past 25 years, 8 teams have started a season winless through the first 15. As a reminder, Serie A was just 18 clubs until 2004-2005 (hello, Caso Catania), so Como finishing 17th place finish didn’t win the Lariani survival. Anyways, let’s take a brief stroll back through the greatest futility the league’s seen in the past quarter century. As you can see, every one of those teams dropped down to Serie B.
I remember a couple of these teams surprisingly well. Benevento produced a historically awful defense, which conceded 84 goals. I’m not going to check all the numbers but I think they conceded more goals per game than any side in Serie A history, although 2019-2020 Lecce shipped 85 (and still had a chance to stay up until the final 3 weeks). The reason I was so invested in the Stregoni was that Lorenzo Venuti was on loan with them and I had a hell of a time evaluating if he was a decent player being destroyed by a terrible team context or if he was also pants.
That Chievo Verona team left me with some wonderful memories, at least. It folded up like a newspaper in the 2nd game of the season against Fiorentina, highlighted by a Nikola Milenković missile (they say Emanuele Giaccherini’s desiccated corpse is still under the Franchi turf), losing 6-1. That Viola side, by the way, was coached by none other than Stefano Pioli. Circles within in circles.
What all these sides have in common, of course, is relegation. None of them made anything resembling a push for survival. Many of them never really recovered: Benevento crashed out of Serie B 2 years after going down from the top flight and but at least leads its Serie C group; Ascoli’s yo-yoed between the 2nd and 3rd tiers; and Ancona declared bankruptcy in 2004, restarted in Serie C2, clawed back to Serie B, declared bankruptcy again in 2010, and now plays in Serie D.
The biggest success stories of this ignominious group of 8 are Atalanta and Como. La Dea remains Europe’s most impressive club, a miracle that defies rational explanation, and deserves everyone’s respect. Como hasn’t reached that level yet but has rich ownership and an intelligent vision, even if the implementation is a little gross. That pair ought to serve as models for Fiorentina going forward.
What do they have in common? Well, this isn’t what Rocco Commisso or any of his people want to hear, but both got new ownership that cleaned house, instilling an identity that allowed them to consolidate, stabilize, and grow. It’d be reductive to say that new ownership is Fiorentina’s only hope of shaking off the impending relegation, but recent historical precedent indicates it’s the only way out.
