Serie C: Il calcio che fa bene al Paese – “Football that’s good for the country”
As far as league slogans go, this one particularly feels workshopped over some outsourced marketing executives’ pub lunch. In fact, at times it feels a bit like a piss-take, such as last year when Pro Vercelli manager Franco Lerda and Vis Pesaro defender Francesco Cusumano were both found guilty of racially abusing opposition players within the same month. Or every summer when a handful of Serie C clubs die a preventable death, mucking up everyone else’s season and the entire league pyramid in the process. Perhaps there’s a missing question mark: Il calcio che fa bene al Paese?
It’s not that Serie C is a parochial, bent or rotten league. It isn’t. It’s just that social and economic responsibility isn’t necessarily the best starting point to promote it. Indeed, in an age of media-manufactured hysteria championed by the Premier League and emulated by top-tier leagues across Europe, the Italian third tier (even more so than the aspirational Serie B) is an organic, unadulterated source of excitement and intrigue for reasons of heritage, nostalgia and geography. If that weren’t enough, it also has one of Europe’s most fun and exciting playoff systems.
But first thing’s first: what exactly makes Serie C worth the watch?
Mito e magia in piazza e in borgo – Italy in microcosm
Serie A is magnificent for tourists and lovers of football. Of course it is. It gives you all the best teams in all the biggest cities (and Cremona). In fact, if you were to link up all the Serie A grounds, you would be presented with a fine Grand Tour experience in many of Italy’s most beautiful and culturally rich cities: Rome, Naples, Florence, Turin, Bologna… Great for your Instagram profile.
Now put your phone back in your pocket and throw away your Italo route map. Because all you’ll need to watch Serie C are a good sense of direction and the printed timetables plastered over provincial station walls. And patience. Plenty of patience.
From the gritty urban realism of Foggia, Taranto and Sesto San Giovanni to the Tuscan valleys, Lucanian hilltops and Leopardian hamlets where San Donato Tavarnelle, Picerno and Recanatese reside, you’ll have access to a truer Italy where the buildings have space to breathe, the locals are more authentic and the football is “lived” from closer quarters.
You’ll still get some of Italy’s most bustling cities like Verona (where Virtus play), Trieste and – from next season – Catania, as well as some well-trodden gems like Siena, Lucca and Mantova. Then add in some of the country’s most iconic panoramas, from the mountain-nestled Lecco on Lake Como to the bridgeless Strait of Messina and the crowded beaches of Rimini, plus a generous smattering of what-the-fuck-am-I-doing-here outposts like Zanica (Albinoleffe), Meda (Renate) and, likely from next season, Guidonia Montecelio (Monterosi).
Imagine a similar league of the 41st to 100th best teams played out in other countries of Europe. From a municipal beauty perspective, it seems indisputable to this, admittedly biased, observer that the Italian towns playing host to these clubs are several times more scenic than their equivalents in, say, England – I mean, have you ever stopped for a morning cappuccino on the piazzas of Coventry?
Dove le stelle vengono a nascondere – Where the stars hide.
What’s more, Serie C has always been a hang-out for Serie A protagonists past and present. Once the breeding ground for stars of tomorrow such as Roberto Baggio, Gianfranco Zola and Pippo Inzaghi, present-day players like Lorenzo Insigne, Junior Messias, Jorginho and Giovanni Di Lorenzo are among a more recent cohort of meteoric risers from the footballing depths. With Di Lorenzo, there’s one phrase you hear constantly about his time at Cuneo and Matera: “Everyone knew this boy had no business playing in Serie C”.
That same line has been repeated ad nauseum this season by coaches, teammates and journalists about Alessandro Arena, Gubbio’s 22-year-old Sicilian winger whose fine portfolio of goals, assists and all-round flair spanning several years makes a mockery of the scouting systems of clubs higher up the chain. Those club are unlikely to make the same mistake with Cesena’s Stiven Shpendi, a trequartista cum tap-in merchant who at 19 years of age has netted twelve times this season. The stars of Pro Patria’s Angelo Ndrecka, Pescara’s Marco Delle Monache and Potenza’s repurposed raumdeuter Giovanni Volpe (the Italian Oliver Burke) are also in ascendance, with the playoffs offering a prime opportunity to see them
But you don’t have to be young to be appreciated. Just ask Virtus Verona’s Emil Hallfredsson, Siena’s Alberto Paloschi or Virtus Entella’s Gastón Ramírez. These footballing senatori – who share he league with seventies flashbacks Cosimo Chiricò (Crotone) and Daniele Ragatzu (Olbia) – add a dollop of class and charisma abundant enough to light up any league.
Now, about those playoffs…
The Serie C Playoff Structure
The architecture of the Serie C playoffs is a work of art, but it takes a minute to get your head around. Here’s the simple part:
- During the regular season, the 60 teams that make up Serie C are divided into three geographical gironi (sections or conferences).
- The winners of each regional girone (north, central, south) are automatically promoted to Serie B. This season, the girone champions were Feralpisalò, Reggiana and Catanzaro.
- The teams finishing in 2nd to 10th place in each section enter a 28-team playoff tournament.
- The winner of the Coppa Serie C is also handed a playoff spot. This season, the beneficiaries were Lanerossi Vicenza, who beat Juventus Under 23 – a failed trial project in economic, reputational and ethical terms – in the final. Lanerossi’s spot ultimately went to 11th placed Pergolettese since they had already secured a playoff spot through their league position.
Still with us? Right…
- There are six playoff rounds, which we can generally split into three phases: the regional phase (Rounds 1 and 2), the national phase (Rounds 3 and 4) and the basketball-influenced Final Four (Semi-finals and Final).
- Each team is allocated a round to enter the competition based on their league position. For instance, a team that finishes tenth will be handed a first-round away tie, whereas a team finishing second (e.g. Crotone) will enter in the fourth round (essentially the quarter-final stage).
- A seedings system is in place during the first four rounds. This means that the team that performed better during the regular season will be given home advantage – for two-legged ties in Rounds 3 and 4, they will have home advantage in the second leg.
- If a tie ends in a draw after 90 minutes (in Rounds 1 and 2) or 180 minutes (in Rounds 3 and 4), the seeded team will go through.
- If a semi-final tie or the final ends in a draw, seedings go out the window and matches will go to extra time and penalties if necessary.
- The winner of the Playoff Final is promoted to Serie B.
You can refer to the playoff wallchart below for a (somewhat) easier-on-the-eye overview.
È la speranza che ci uccide – It’s the hope that kills us
This intricate system gives a shot at glory to teams that otherwise wouldn’t have a rat’s chance of reaching Serie B. Take Pergolettese, for instance. At the halfway stage, the team from Crema were 16th and heading towards the relegation zone. But a run of good results saw them secure their Serie C status on the penultimate day of the season to inadvertently find themselves in the promotion playoff places. All of a sudden, they were looking at the prospect of Serie B after a whole season of staring down the barrel of Serie D: a leap from fear into hope.
And it’s in the crowds that this hope most tangibly manifests itself. According to figures from StadioPostcards, last year’s Round 1 playoff attendances were up 34% compared to average attendances during the season (calculated on a club-by-club basis). Round 2 attendances were up 84%; Round 3 attendances were up 231%; Round 4 attendances were up 288% and Semi-final attendances were up 421%. The playoff final between Padova and Palermo pulled in 13,117 for Padova’s home leg (their highest attendance since the Serie B playoff final in 2011) and an astonishing 34,010 in the second leg at Palermo’s La Favorita.
This is not a new phenomenon (the Stadio San Paolo hosted 63,000 for Napoli’s 2005 playoff win over Avellino), but it delivers a welcome shot in the arm to a division where regular-season attendances are often hindered by inexistent marketing, poor matchday facilities, perceptions of an unsafe match environment, the stigma of supporting an unfashionable local team and – far too often – bans on away fans.
L’equità per caso? – Fairness by accident or design
But is it fair that a team like Crotone who have amassed 80 points during the 38-match regular season can be pipped to promotion by a side who barely escaped relegation? To answer this, we should look again at the playoff structure.
The Serie C playoffs do not “suffer” from the pure knock-out format of the English Championship playoffs or the Mexican Liguilla. The higher a team finishes in the regular season, the higher their chances of winning the playoffs. As mentioned above, if – like Crotone – you finish second in your girone, you get parachuted into a seeded spot in the quarter-finals, where you need only a draw over two legs to reach the semis. If, on the other hand, you finish 10th, you are faced with a gruelling two-games-a-week schedule in which you are required to win away from home to proceed (a draw would see you eliminated).
This weighted system means that, if all goes to form, you should have three 2nd-placed teams reach the semi-finals – this year Pordenone, Cesena and Crotone hold those spots– where they will be joined by one team from lower down. Even in this case, an advantage is held by the team that holds the “Palermo spot” in the bracket: so-called because the Sicilian club won the playoffs from that position last season. By qualifying as the best 3rd-placed team, they entered in Round 3 but were seeded once again in Round 4 tie. Pisa won from the same spot in 2019. Virtus Entella occupy that spot this year.
But if the playoffs are so heavily weighted, that surely eliminates the chance of an upset? Well, not necessarily. In 2018, Cosenza entered the play-offs in the first round following a 5th placed league finish. The Calabrian club came through six ties (two seeded, two unseeded and two seedless) to win promotion to Serie B. The architect behind Cosenza’s playoff success was Piero Braglia. Braglia now manages Umbrian side Gubbio, who this season find themselves in the “Cosenza spot” following another 5th place finish.
Innovazione a tempo determinato – Innovation and short-termism
By this point, you probably think this playoff system is either the panacea of footballing organisational architecture or the most bonkers, unnecessary thing on the planet. In this pundit’s view, the bracket provides an optimal blend of hope and fairness that is absent from many other national playoff structures. It also solves one of Italian lower league football’s most enduring problems: i biscotti. This season, only three (of sixty) teams went into the penultimate game of the season with nothing to play for – two of them because they had already won their girone. As a result, the prearranged draws or defeats that were previously endemic to Italian football (think Joe McGinniss’s description of Castel di Sangro’s last day defeat to Bari) have largely been eliminated.
But as often happens with Italy’s many great innovations, there are plans afoot to blow the whole system up (another example is the introduction and subsequent scrapping of one-off deciders to separate teams that finish tied on points – it was eventually brought back in for Serie A this season). Last year, outgoing Serie C chairman Francesco Ghirelli’s obsession with North American sports led him to propose an enlarged playoff system in which even the winners of each section would be forced to enter the playoffs. The result would have been not one, but three playoff finals. Fortunately, the proposal was voted down – for now.
Favourites
So back to this year and who are the favourites? Well, as described above, the 2nd placed teams in each girone have a clear structural advantage. Of those, Cesena and Crotone have looked the most consistent across the season, whereas Pordenone will be hoping for the return of manager Domenico Di Carlo to give them a lift. Dark horses are surely Virtus Entella, Zeman’s Pescara and cup winners Lanerossi Vicenza.
Clubs will also have to cope with an unforeseen postponement of this year’s playoffs due to Siena being docked points. This means teams entering in Round 4 will now go five weeks without a competitive game, whereas teams entering in the first round will have even less of a break between playoff matches. In theory, these difficulties should cancel each other out.
How to follow
So how can you, Dear Reader, follow and enjoy the Serie C Playoffs from near or far. Well first of all, it’s a lot more fun when you have a horse in the race. And with 28 clubs to choose from, there’s something for everyone. Here’s a few options:
- Ancona: the club from the Doric city (not Aberdeen) reached Serie A with Jardel in tow (quite literally) in the early 2000s only to disappear from trace for the better part of a decade. Now owned by Malaysian Tony Tiong, the current side are something of a rollercoaster over 90 minutes.
- Pescara: everyone’s favourite Bohemian grandad Zdenêk Zeman will be looking to unleash the next Verratti, Insigne or Immobile with his timeless take on the 433. Hamza Rafia, 18-year-old Marco Delle Monache and Davide Merola are all capable of providing excitement. The extended break will serve as a much-appreciated (by the manager) impromptu bootcamp.
- Pontedera: the Tuscan town is home to Piaggio and the Vespa, but its football team are also famed for having defeated the Italian national team in a 1994 World Cup warmup.
- Monopoli: situated outside Bari, the “Arbroath of Puglia” play their home matches within metres of the Adriatic Sea. Monopoli is about as perfect a beach-holiday location as you can get for the months of May and June.
- Juve Stabia: one of the best supported teams outside of Castellammare di Stabia itself, the diaspora of stabiesi includes the footballing Esposito brothers, former Sampdoria goalie Antonio Mirante and PSG goalie Antonio Donnarumma.
- Virtus Verona: the city’s second team following the demise of Chievo two years ago, the left-wing club operate a far-reaching community scheme to integrate foreigners into society so that they get a fair break in life. Virtus are also an example for sustainable planning: they have been managed by the same coach since 1982.
- Latina: if your idea of heaven is Cumbernauld or Milton Keynes, then this is the team for you. No roundabouts here, but rather a web of hexagonally arranged roads extending out from the former Casa del Fascio, the former Littoria Tower and the once-planned Mussolini Forum. You get the idea…
- The underdogs: four playoff participants were playing their football in Serie D just last year, so how about the red-and-white-quartered shirts of Rimini, the Veneto valley dwellers of Arzignano, the Novara of former Leicester defender Yohan Benalouane and 37-year-old striker Pablo Gonzalez, or hard-as-nails (both on the pitch and in the town itself) Audace Cerignola.
For the full-shebang experience, you’d make worse mistakes than travelling the peninsula to attend games in person. With matches every few days and with the Serie B playoffs going on at the same time, Italy’s quick, cheap and far-reaching rail network will move you effortlessly between some of Italy’s most scenic towns and cities. Be careful regarding timing though, as last-minute changes to kick-off dates and times are common.
If you can’t get there in person, there’s always 196 Sports, the streaming channel which broadcasts Serie C matches worldwide. The channel also features some of the peninsula’s top experienced and up-and-coming Italian-language commentators. So break out the smoke bombs, the Borghetti and the “[Presidente] VATTENE” banners and you’ll feel right in the thick of the action.