 | ||||
| Full name | Calcio Foggia 1920 S.r.l. | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nicknames | Rossoneri (The Red and Blacks) Satanelli (The Little Satans) Dauni (The Daunians) | |||
| Founded | 1920; 105 years ago (1920) asUS Foggia | |||
| Ground | Stadio Pino Zaccheria, Foggia, Italy | |||
| Capacity | 25,085 | |||
| Owner(s) | Corporate Investments Group S.r.l. (80%) Davide Pelusi (20%) | |||
| Chairman | Nicola Canonico | |||
| Manager | Delio Rossi | |||
| League | Serie C Group C | |||
| 2024–25 | Serie C Group C, 17th of 20 | |||
| Website | www | |||
 Current season | ||||
Calcio Foggia 1920, commonly referred to asFoggia, is anItalian football club based inFoggia,Apulia. It currently plays inSerie C, the third division of the Italian championship.
Having last been in the top levelSerie A in 1995, the team experienced the best periods in its history in the 1960s and 1970s, and also in the first half of the 1990s, playing four seasons in the top flight while coming close to qualifying for the UEFA Cup and gaining media exposure at European level for expressing fast and attacking football.
On 23 April 2017, the club regained promotion toSerie B after a 19-year absence, but folded again only two years later, to restart fromSerie D in 2019 as Calcio Foggia.
The club was founded in 1920 as Foggia Calcio. The club spent its early history playing football in the lower leagues, winning a championship in thedilettanti in 1933.
In 1957–58, a merger took place between Foggia Calcio and Foggia Incedit, forming Unione Sportiva Foggia as the club is today. In 1961–62, the team was taken over by President Domenico Rosa Rosa, a wood industrialist, and coachOronzo Pugliese, who quickly led them to promotion toSerie B.
History was made in the 1963–64 season, when Rosa Rosa and Oronzo Pugliese's Foggia reachedSerie A for the first time. From1964–65, Foggia managed to compete in three consecutive seasons in the top flight. On 31 January 1965, still under the guidance of coach Pugliese, Foggia recorded a historic 3–2 victory againstInter, who were at the time led by managerHelenio Herrera. The season was crowned by the national call-ups of Micelli and Nocera who played forItaly againstWales. Italy won 4–1 and Nocera managed to get on the scoresheet. At the end of the season, Pugliese left to take charge ofRoma.
Pugliese was replaced byEgizio Rubino, and Foggia, although with more difficulty compared to the previous season, managed to survive the drop again. The following year, however, Foggia was relegated. It was a forgettable championship, after 10 matches Foggia had collected only three points and scored just 24 goals. Rubino was sacked and replaced by Bonazzini. The team improved under Bonazzini but failed to avoid relegation. At the end of the season, president Rosa Rosa also left the club, following their relegation.
Relegated at the end of the1966–67 season, Foggia returned to the top flight in1970–71, with Tommaso Maestrelli on the bench. Maestrelli would later win the1973–74 scudetto withLazio. Luigi Del Neri was, at the time, a Foggia player. The club was relegated again and returned to Serie A in 1973–74, before another relegation which came after a 6-point deduction for alleged corruption relating to the referee of a home match againstMilan. The coach that season was Lauro Toneatto. Foggia played two more seasons in Serie A in1976–77 and in1977–78, when they were once more relegated toSerie B.
Following their relegation back to Serie B, Foggia were then dealt with a further blow with relegation toSerie C. They battled their way inSerie C1 throughout much of the 1980s. This was a particularly tough time for Foggia as their regional rivals,Bari,Lecce,Barletta andTaranto were all playing at higher levels.
In 1989, with the appointment ofCzech coachZdeněk Zeman, the club began to enter the greatest period in its history. The aggressive and entertaining football of the Bohemian coach was based on a 4–3–3 formation. Pressure, offside tactics and frenetic movement of both players and the ball made up the trademark style of Zeman's Foggia. The club first returned toSerie B, and then the following season in1990–91, they won the Serie B by a large margin and returned toSerie A.
After returning toSerie A in the1991–92 season,Foggia dei Miracoli, as they were known, proved to be competitive with any opponent and was appreciated by the press because of the attractive football they played. The termZemanlandia was then coined to indicate the style created by Zeman, and became strictly associated to the Foggia team of the 1990s. The Foggia team also featured star players, especially attacking trio ofGiuseppe Signori,Francesco Baiano andRoberto Rambaudi, as well as Russian starIgor Shalimov. That season, Foggia achieved the amazing feat of scoring 58 goals while also conceding 58. Foggia soon lost many of these quality players, including their three key forwards, and had to replace them with young talent. The club completed three Serie A campaigns finishing mid-table. InSerie A 1993-94, Foggia's football continued but the depleted squad was no longer as competitive and the club was relegated back toSerie B in 1995.
Zeman left to joinLazio at the end of that season, marking the end ofZemanlandia whilst the club was beset with financial problems. The Foggia glory days had come to an end.
Following the drop, Foggia spent two seasons inSerie B achieving mid-table finishes, before another relegation followed at the end of the1997–98 season. They did not fare any better down inSerie C1, with another successive relegation toSerie C2.
Playing football in Italy's fourth tier was far less glamorous than the Zemanlandia days but the club set itself on the long road back in 2002–03, when led by coachPasquale Marino and key playersRoberto De Zerbi andMichele Pazienza, they were promoted back toSerie C1.
After the 2003–04 season, in which they finished mid-table but with good signs for the following year, Foggia were hit with financial problems and lost the coach Marino and all the best players.
The news sent the fans into despair but Giuseppe Coccimiglio took over the reins of the club and gave confidence to the new club which assumed the team's historic name,Unione Sportiva Foggia, and was able to keep their place in the league, thanks to Comma 3 of theArticle 52 of N.O.I.F.[1]
After two more seasons finishing in mid-table, during which there were five coaching changes, Coccimiglio was criticised for not paying players' wages, a situation which created instability. After complex negotiations, the company passed into the hands of a team of local entrepreneurs led by Tullio Capobianco.
The club spent the following years mid-table in C1, narrowly losing a promotion playoff in2006–07 againstAvellino which would have seen them return to Serie B. The following season,2007–08, they again reached the playoffs, this time losing toCremonese.
In June 2010Pasquale Casillo, chairman and owner during the glory years of the 1990s, re-acquired the club, and reformed the old trio of Foggia heads by appointing back Zdeněk Zeman as manager andGiuseppe Pavone as director of football. However, despite impressive performances from several young and promising players who went on to play at the highest level likeLorenzo Insigne andMarco Sau, Foggia missed out on playoff qualification.
After the end of the 2011–12 season, Foggia was declined to enter Lega Pro Prima Divisione[2] and was thus was excluded from professional football.[3]
In the summer 2012 a new company namedA.C.D. Foggia Calcio[4] was founded to continue the football history of the city of Foggia. The club restarted fromSerie D[5] thanks toArticle 52 of N.O.I.F.[6] and was immediately promoted toLega Pro Seconda Divisione through a repechage, dropping theA.C.D. part of their denomination in the process.
Over the next 5 seasons, the club will make the climb from Serie D (fifth level) to Serie B (second level); all this thanks to the coaches Pasquale Padalino,Roberto De Zerbi (who also won a Serie C Italian cup) and Giovanni Stroppa.
After the end of the 2018–19 season, Foggia was declined to enter Serie C and was thus was excluded from professional football.
In the summer 2019 a new company namedCalcio Foggia 1920 was founded to continue the football history of the city of Foggia. The club restarted fromSerie D thanks toArticle 52 of N.O.I.F. and was soon promoted toSerie C.
Football has always been a popular sport to follow in the city ofFoggia, especially since the Zeman years. I Satanelli can also count on support from across theProvince of Foggia.
The only twinning Foggia fans have is with the supporters ofCagliari and more specifically with theSconvolts 1987 ultras. However, each group has personal friendships, notable are those with Monza, Latina and BudapestHonvéd.
93 year-old Foggia fan Nonno Ciccio has been attending matches consistently since 1937, with the exception of wartime years. Nonno is now cited as the oldest ultra in Italy and still regularly attends Foggia matches, home and away.[7]
Note: Flags indicate national team as defined underFIFA eligibility rules; some limited exceptions apply. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.
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Note: Flags indicate national team as defined underFIFA eligibility rules; some limited exceptions apply. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.
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Board of directors[edit]
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Foggia have had many managers and trainers throughout the history of the club, in some seasons more than one manager was in charge. Here is a chronological list of them from 1923 onwards.[9]
Roberto Fini– 1923–28Severino Rosso– 1928–29
Béla Károly– 1929–32
Tony Cargnelli– 1932–33 Engelbert König– 1933–34 Silvio Stritzel– 1934–35 Giovanni Batista Rebuffo– 1935 Wilmos Wilhelm– 1935–36 Béla Károly– 1936–37 Angelo Benincasa– 1937–39 István Fogl – 1939–40 Ferenc Plemich– 1940 István Fogl – 1940–41 Ferenc Plemich– 1941 Angelo Benincasa– 1941–46
Piero Andreoli– 1946–47
Lajos Politzer– 1947–48 Angelo Benincasa– 1948–49András Kuttik– 1949 Vincenzo Marsico– 1949–50András Kuttik– 1950 Vincenzo Marsico– 1950–51Tony Cargnelli– 1951–52 Cesare Migliorini – 1952 Vincenzo Marsico– 1952–53 Cesare Migliorini – 1953–54Lajos Kovács– 1954–55 Leandro Remondini– 1955 Vincenzo Marsico– 1955–59 Leonardo Costagliola – 1959–60 Paolo Tabanelli– 1960–61 Leonardo Costagliola – 1961Oronzo Pugliese– 1961–65 Egizio Rubino – 1965–66 Luigi Bonizzoni– 1966–68 Serafino Montanari – 1968 Tommaso Maestrelli– 1968–71Ettore Puricelli– 1971–72 Lauro Toneatto– 1972–74Cesare Maldini– 1974–76 Roberto Balestri – 1976Ettore Puricelli– 1976–78
Cinesinho– 1978–79 Giorgio Sereni– 1979–80Ettore Puricelli– 1980–81Vasco Tagliavini– 1981–82Fernando Veneranda– 1982Lamberto Leonardi– 1982–83 Lamberto Giorgis– 1983 Romano Fogli – 1983–84Ettore Puricelli– 1984 Lamberto Giorgis– 1984–85 Graziano Landoni – 1985 G.B. Fabbri– 1985 Corrado Viciani – 1985–86 G.B. Fabbri– 1986
Zdeněk Zeman– 1986–87 Roberto Balestri– 1987 Pippo Marchioro– 1987–88 Roberto Balestri– 1988 Giuseppe Caramanno– 1988–89Zdeněk Zeman– 1989–94 Enrico Catuzzi – 1994–95Delio Rossi– 1995–96Tarcisio Burgnich– 1996–97Domenico Caso– 1997 Beniamino Cancian– 1997–98Domenico Caso– 1998 Lorenzo Mancano– 1998–99 Fabio Brini– 1999 Piero Braglia– 1999–00 Lorenzo Mancano– 2000Ignazio Arcoleo– 2000–01 Bruno Pace– 2001–02 Carlo Florimbi– 2002Pasquale Marino– 2002–04Giuseppe Giannini– 2004–05 Massimo Morgia– 2005–06 Giorgio Rumignani– 2006 Silvano Fiorucci– 2006Stefano Cuoghi– 2006–07 Fulvio D'Adderio– 2007 Salvatore Campilongo– 2007–08Giuseppe Galderisi– 2008 Raffaele Novelli– 2008–09 Antonio Porta– 2009Guido Ugolotti– 2010Zdeněk Zeman– 2010–11Valter Bonacina– 2011Paolo Stringara– 2011–12Valter Bonacina– 2012Pasquale Padalino– 2012–13Roberto De Zerbi– 2014–16Giovanni Stroppa– 2016–18Gianluca Grassadonia– 2018Pasquale Padalino– 2018–19Gianluca Grassadonia– 2019Amantino Mancini– 2019 Ninni Corda– 2019-2020Ezio Capuano– 2020 Vincenzo Maiuri– 2020Marco Marchionni– 2020–2021Zdeněk Zeman– 2021–Present| Series | Years | Last | Promotions | Relegations |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| A | 11 | 1994–95 | - |  5 (1967,1971,1974,1978,1995) |
| B | 25 | 2018–19 |  5 (1964,1970,1973,1976,1991) | 7 (1936,1947,1961,1979,1983,1998,2019✟) |
| C +C2 | 41 +5 | 2021–22 | 7 (1933,1946,1960,1962,1980,1989,2017) 6 (2003 C2,2014 C2) | 3 (1952,1999 C1,2012✟) |
| 82 out of 90 years of professional football in Italy since 1929 | ||||
| D | 8 | 2019–20 | 2 (1958,2013,2020) | never |
Media related toFoggia Calcio at Wikimedia Commons
