LR Vicenza

L.R. Vicenza S.p.A. (acronym for Lanerossi Vicenza), better known as Vicenza or Lanerossi, is an Italian football club based in the city of Vicenza. It plays in Serie C, the third division of the Italian football league.

Founded on 9 March 1902, as Associazione del Calcio in Vicenza, it is the oldest football club in north-eastern Italy as well as in the Triveneto and Veneto regions. It has competed in 30 Serie A seasons and is listed by the IFFHS as the 15 best Italian teams of the 20th century.

Domestically, Vicenza won the Coppa Italia in 1996–1997 and the Italian Cup Serie C in 1981–1982 and 2022–2023, while its best result at international level is reaching the semi-final of the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup (1997–1998). It reached the final in the 1910–1911 First Division championship, where it was defeated by Pro Vercelli, and finished as runners-up Juventus in the 1977–1978 Serie A championship, in which it achieved the best result ever by a newly promoted club in the single-round era.

The club was reformed in 2018, following Vicenza Calcio's bankruptcy, thanks to the moving and name change of Bassano Virtus (then owned by OTB Group) from Bassano to Vicenza. L.R Vicenza is now the heir, and de facto continuation, of the sporting tradition that began on 9 March 1902 with the founding of Associazione del Calcio in Vicenza which later became Lanerossi Vicenza from 1953 to 1989 and finally Vicenza Calcio, before going bankrupt in 2018.

History

Vicenza, founded in 1902 by a group of citizens led by Professor Tito Buy, headmaster of the Lioy High School, and by physical education teacher Antonio Libero Scarpa, it is one of the oldest football clubs in Italy. The formation of the first board of directors took place on 9 March 1902, while the competitive debut took place on 18 May 1903 in a friendly match valid for the Provincial Championship for Schools.

The professional debut dates back to the 1910–11 season: ACIVI (as Vicenza was called for its first fifty years, acronym of Associazione del Calcio in Vicenza) inaugurated its new Borgo Casale ground on 12 February 1911 with a great victory over Bologna and in March finished the Veneto-Emilia round with a full score, qualifying for the final for the title. However, it had to succumb, both away and at home, to Pro Vercelli which was in its golden years.

Vicenza challenged Pro Vercelli in the double final of the 1910–1911 First Category championship.

In the years before the First World War it took part to several national finals of northern Italy, which were played between the winners of the regional groups. Vicenza thus met Bologna, Juventus, Milan and Inter several times, establishing itself among the best Italian teams.

Vicenza began in the First Category in the 1920s competing in various regional groups. In 1921-22 it joined the schism of the great teams, going to play in the C.C.I. championship: it finished last in group A, a result that condemned it to having to play and win the inter-divisional qualifiers against teams from the Second Division to escape relegation. When the Compromesso Colombo was implemented, it faced the inter-divisional qualification round which it lost against Derthona, thus leaving the top national division. In the 1924–25 season Vicenza won the elimination round of the Second Division after play-offs with Udinese and Olympia Fiume, but was then disqualified and downgraded to last place due to the irregular positions of the Hungarians Horváth and Molnár; however, it was not relegated because thanks to the Italian Football Federation. Unprepared for the transformations that were launching Italian football towards professionalism, it was overwhelmed by the various tournament restructurings, leading to the 1929 plummeting to the fourth level of the national football pyramid.

Colors and symbols

Since 1902, Vicenza's club colours have been white and red, the same colours of the city's emblem. The uniform used by the team in its home matches has traditionally consisted of a red and white jersey, combined with white shorts and socks, the latter with red tips.

Over the course of the club's history, the Vicenza uniform has undergone various changes. Initially, it was basically a shirt with very narrow lines, combined with red socks. Between the 1920s and 1930s, in addition to the aforementioned shirt, white shirts with a red horizontal band in the centre of the chest, or conversely red with a white central band, were also in use, together with red shorts; the central band would be eliminated in the following decade, leaving the uniform completely white. After the World War II, the Vicenza team often sported a wider palette than at the beginning of the 20th century.

Between the years 1963–1964 and 1966–1967 there was then a return to a jersey with very thick posts; in the last season a white jersey with a red diagonal bar was also worn. From the 1970s, the vertical posts returned to a standard width; with the end of the decade, Lanificio Rossi began to provide as second and third jerseys models with bright colours, including green, light blue, blue and yellow, very simple and minimal, marked only by the company's classic "R" affixed to the chest.

In the 1981–1982 season, the first official sponsor appeared on the red and white jerseys: Yuma Jeans, which remained there until the 1983–1984 season.

Until the 1995–1996 season, the jersey featured thicker lines; while from the 1996–1997 season to the 1998–1999 season the uniform appeared with fewer lines.

From the introduction of surnames (1995–1996 season) until the 2006–2007 season, the numbers and surnames in the club's home jerseys were black.

Stadium and training facilities

The first stadium in which the then A.C. Vicenza played was the Borgo Casale field in the eastern part of the city. It was a simple football field without stands or bleachers where the biancorossi players took their first steps. The interruption due to the First World War led the club to look for a new area where they could play their matches.

In 1919, a new stadium was built in San Felice (west of the Vicenza), which, for the time, was a modern sports facility with a wooden grandstand and changing rooms. During the 1920s, the grandstand was then built in concrete and the changing rooms were moved to the space below. It was inaugurated on Sunday 22 June 1919 with the friendly match Vicenza - Triestina. It was nicknamed stadio dea carbonea (charcoal stadium) because, in order to level out the grooves left by the iron studs, they used to cover them with charcoal and pyrite taken from the nearby foundries.

Since 1935, the team has played its home matches at the Romeo Menti stadium, which has always been municipal property.

The stadium was initially called Campo Sportivo del Littorio, in line with the fascist influences of the time. Inaugurated on the city's patron saint's day on 8 September with a match between Vicenza and Soroksár of Budapest, it was subsequently damaged by bombings during the Second World War, renovated in a few months (with the elimination of the athletics track) and renamed, in 1946, to Municipal.

After the Superga air disaster in which Romeo Menti, born in Vicenza and a former Vicenza footballer, lost his life, the city decided, in 1949, to name the stadium after him.

It has undergone several renovations and adaptations over the years. It is a typical "English-style" stadium, with stands and bleachers very close to the pitch.

Company structure

The club offices are located at Largo Paolo Rossi 9, in a building inside the Stadio Romeo Menti area. Opposite the company offices is Casa Vicenza, a club house built in 2017 with a hospitality area and press room.

Youth sector

The club's youth sector boasts two consecutive victories in the Viareggio Tournament, in 1954 and 1955.

It is divided into four areas

Over the decades, the biancorosso nursery has nurtured numerous players who have gone on to play in the first team, from the club's early days to the present day. Among those who started at Vicenza are Vicenza native Roberto Baggio (considered one of the best players in the history of world football, winner of the 1993 Ballon d'Or), Gino Vallesella (the first biancorosso captain), brothers and Vicenza natives Umberto Menti and Romeo Menti and their nephew Luigi Menti (second all-time for appearances and first for appearances in the top division in the Vicenza jersey), Alberto Marchetti (seventh all-time for appearances and third among goal scorers), Bruno Quaresima (tenth all-time for appearances and second among scorers), Mirko Pavinato, Giancarlo Fusato, Renzo Cappellaro, Nevio Scala, Massimo Briaschi, Giorgio Sterchele, Nicola Zanini, Paolo Zanetti and Luca Rigoni.

Between the end of the 1990s and the beginning of the 2000s, mention must be made of Christian Maggio from Vicenza: having grown up in the Vicenza youth sector, he made his debut in the first team on the first day of the 2000–2001 Serie A, establishing himself in the following years elsewhere and in the senior national team.

The youth teams train in Vicenza in the facilities of Via Gagliardotti, Stanga, Saviabona, San Pio X, Bertesinella and Pomari, while in

Honours

In Europe competitions

Divisional movements

Players

Notable former managers

There have been 75 coaches who have taken on the technical leadership of Vicenza since 1902. Among their nationalities, Italian prevails.

The first coach in the history of the biancorossa was Antonio Libero Scarpa, who led the team from 1902 to 1908; he was also president of Vicenza from 1903 to 1908.

The one with the longest tenure is still Giulio Fasolo from Vicenza, who remained at the helm of the team for 10 seasons, seven of which were consecutive, from 1908–1909 to 1914–1915, and following the activity suspended between 1915 and 1919 due to the exposure of the Vicenza area on the front line of the First World War, he was once again coach from 1919–1920 to 1921–1922. Giulio Fasolo was coach when the Vicenza team came close to winning the Scudetto in the 1910–1911 season.

There were many foreign coaches in the 1920s and 1930s, the first in the Biancorossa's history being Austrian Franz Sedlacek, who led the team in the 1922–1923 season.

Among the foreign coaches, those who boast the highest number of presences on the red and white bench are the Hungarians Wilmas Wilhelm and Imre Janos Bekey and the Uruguayan Hector Puricelli.

A coach who marked the biancorossa's history was Giovan Battista Fabbri. A Vicenza coach from 1976 to 1979, he was at the helm of the Vicenza team that came close to winning the Serie A in the 1977–1978 season. The Emilian coach had the intuition of moving Paolo Rossi from right winger to prolific centre forward.

Kit manufacturer and sponsors

Fans and Ultras

Vicenza has numerous fans both in Italy and abroad.

The ultras movement was born in Vicenza in 1974[6] when, in October of that year, the Ultras group was founded. On 9 November of the following year, the second group of organised Berici supporters was founded: I Marines. The two groups resided in the Curva Sud and both had a skull as their symbol. In addition to these two groups, other groups of organised supporters were the Vigilantes, the main and historical group of the Curva Sud, born in 1978 and disbanded on 1 September 2012, after 34 years of presence:[7] the symbol of the Vigilantes was a hooded head, called the boia, with two crossed axes in the background.

Besides the Vigilantes, the other three historical groups of the Curva Sud were the Fabio Group, the Caneva Berica and the Kapovolti. The Fabio Group, whose symbol was the tao, was founded in 1990 in memory of the death of Vigilantes fan Fabio Cucco. Caneva Berica, founded in 1990, had as its symbol a demijohn of wine while Kapovolti, founded in 1993, had as its logo a face of a drunken man with his tongue out, very similar to Frankenstein's monster. Until the 1997-1998 season the Fabio Group and Kapovolti fans resided in the Curva Sud; then from the 1998-1999 season they both settled in the Curva Nord, then in 2004 came the dissolution of these two groups.

In the second half of the 1980s, there was the birth of the Vecchia Guardia, or Old Guard. This was a group created by the same founders of the Vigilantes, whose banner was placed in the centre of the Curva Sud by the Vigilantes themselves, and was used in delicate moments for the fate of Vicenza, such as in the two most painful biancorosse seasons, 1988-1989 and 1989-1990, when Vicenza risked relegation to Serie C2 both times.

Vicenza in popular culture

LR Vicenza, as one of the Italian clubs that have played the most Serie A championships, is featured in various works of Italian film, television as well as in music, and even in video games.

In films sphere, it is worth mentioning The Last Minute, a 1987 film directed by Pupi Avati and starring Ugo Tognazzi, Elena Sofia Ricci, Marco Leonardi and Diego Abatantuono; Vicenza, the Romeo Menti Stadium and the Curva Sud fans are also credited. In this film, both the inside and outside of the stadium were used as locations for filming. The red and white colours of the team featured in the film and some of its characteristics recall Vicenza, the emblem of the classic provincial team of national football in those years. The filming of the Vicenza Curva Sud was carried out on 26 April 1987 during the Vicenza-Cesena match. The stadium is also recognisable by the presence of the red and white banners of the ultras from Vicenza and the Pal Zileri billboard placed above the centre of the Curva Sud.

Also on the big screen, in the autumn of 2020, the filming of the film Mancino naturale, starring Claudia Gerini, Katia Ricciarelli and Massimo Ranieri, was shot at the Romeo Menti stadium: the main character, a fan of the Vicenza team, was named Paolo by his parents in honour of Paolo Rossi.

Tito Buy, founder in 1902 and first president of Vicenza, is the great-grandfather of actress Margherita Buy, while among the best-known fans of the Berici team is adult entretainer Rocco Siffredi.

External links