The Notes from Verona Column –

16 September 2025

On 16 January 2025, after months of behind the scenes wrangling, a Texas-based personal fairness agency, Presidio Buyers, acquired 100% possession of Hellas Verona Soccer Membership.

Italo Zanzi, former CEO of AS Roma, Managing Director of FOX Sports activities Asia and Vice President of Main League Baseball, was put in because the membership’s Government Chairman, with former president Maurizio Setti staying on in a brand new function as Senior Advisor of Soccer Operations.

The American’s long-term imaginative and prescient for the soccer membership features a new stadium and an enlargement of its world fan base. On Monday night time, on the first house recreation of the present season, we needed to accept little greater than a revamped bar service providing draft Budweiser and popcorn.

It’s not fairly the revolution we had been hoping for.

Actually, the prevailing bar operation on the Bentegodi was one of many few issues within the stadium that truly labored (don’t get me began on the bogs). And after I say labored, I imply it was a dingy, over-crowded typically disagreeable expertise ,however you could possibly all the time get a freshly poured can of Paulaner or a capsule of Borgetti whereas barely lacking a second of the motion. Sure, it was disorderly and chaotic, however in that uniquely Italian manner that by some means appeared to work!

Final night time, the Bentegodi supplied a primary trace of that creeping commercialism that followers have been dreading since information of the American takeover was introduced again in January. It’s a improvement that few followers right here crave. Bar employees wearing pristine polo shirts and matching baseball caps providing pints of disappointment and buckets of popcorn.

Newly-promoted Cremonese arrived on the Bentegodi on the crest of a wave after their finest ever begin in Serie A, with victories over Milan and Sassuolo. Nevertheless it was Hellas who opened proceedings like a well-tuned Stradivarius, with finely tuned Nigerian striker Reward Emmanuel Orban orchestrating issues up entrance and the Brazilian Giovane delivering one other virtuoso efficiency.

Regardless of creating quite a few probabilities, it was nonetheless goalless when veteran midfielder Roberto Gagliardini hobbled off in tears after simply half-hour following a bruising encounter with Federico Bonazzoli.  The previous Inter and Monza participant, making his Hellas debut, was rushed to hospital with a suspected dislocated shoulder.  His late arrival in Verona had taken the sting off what was an in any other case disappointing switch market, so a seemingly severe damage took the shine of what had been a powerful debut efficiency.

However this early setback, it was most likely Hellas Verona’s finest efficiency for the reason that American takeover. Verona’s rapidly assembled multinational squad appeared to have gelled, taking part in fluid and direct soccer which Cremonese have been ill-equipped to cope with, wanting a shadow of that staff that prompted that huge upset on the San Siro a couple of weeks beforehand. Verona had ten corners to Cremonese’s one, twenty photographs (9 heading in the right direction, 12 from contained in the field) in comparison with simply two heading in the right direction for the guests. However, regardless of all of the stress, Hellas simply couldn’t rating.

Again within the 1984/85 season, after ready greater than 50 years to return to Serie A, newly promoted Cremonese, have been decided to trigger an upset towards the shock bundle of the season. That they had earned promotion because of a neighborhood lad named Gianluca Vialli, however he had been offered to Samdoria in the course of the summer season, and Cremonese then as now lacked the fireplace energy to trigger the Hellas defence any actual issues.

Although it’s hardly thought-about a derby, Cremona is barely a 90 minute drive from Verona, and a powerful native rivalry exists between the 2 units of followers. Again within the mid-Eighties that rivalry typically spilled over into violent skirmishes in and across the stadium. No such issues final night time on the Bentegodi the place inflexible segregation and a six lane working monitor all the time ensures that the 2 units of followers are saved miles aside, leading to little greater than the ritualistic alternate of insults from one of many stadium to the opposite.

Again in Verona’s championship profitable season, Hellas solely took the lead because of a 74th minute Giuseppe Galderisi penalty, adopted 10 minutes later by a Hans-Peter Briegel solo effort. Regardless of the two-goal margin of victory it was a recreation that Hellas have been fortunate to win, sustaining their slender two-point cushion on the high of the league.

4 months later, Hellas went one higher on the Bentegodi, with an emphatic three-nil victory with second half objectives coming from Antonio Di Gennaro, Elkjaer and Briegel. By then Hellas have been nudging ever nearer in the direction of an excellent footballing fairy story, with a 5 level cushion rising over Inter, who misplaced 3-1 to Juventus.

With thirty minutes left on the clock, there was greater than a frisson of pleasure final night time when Jamie Vardy emerged from the bench to heat up on the Bentegodi working monitor. He’s a participant who is aware of a factor or two about fairytales and positively had the capability to trigger a late upset on the Bentegodi. Within the occasion, nevertheless, he was all however nameless and would require higher service from his teammates if he’s to make any influence on Serie A. That stated, he’s simply the type of character the league wants. And positively one which I’ll be maintaining a tally of this season.

Richard Hough is the writer of Verona Campione, the Miracle of 1985.