The Italian club Piacenza Calcio knows how to wear out coaches: the fourth division team dismisses two coaches within 24 hours. The first person has to leave in the morning, his successor in the afternoon. In the evening an old acquaintance comes back.
The history of the Italian club Piacenza Calcio reads turbulently: the “Papaveri” belonged to Serie A for a long time from the beginning of the 1990s before falling into the fourth division, in which the club still plays today. And yet this day may be one of the wildest in the club’s history.
In just one day, the Serie D football club had three different coaches. In comparison, the FC Schalke 04 coaching chair almost seems like a symbol of continuity. On Tuesday, the club management fired coach Carmine Parlato and hired Simone Bentivoglio as his successor. But he was only able to stay in the coaching position for a few hours – after the first training session he was gone again.
The signing of Bentivoglio was so poorly received by the Piacenza fans that the club’s management had to react quickly. The fans protested violently during Bentivoglio’s first training session, stormed the pitch and threatened a boycott of the upcoming games, as Italian media unanimously reported. Bentivoglio was involved in a major betting scandal in 2011 and was subsequently banned for 13 months.
The previous predecessor returns
After the two releases in the morning and afternoon, Piacenza appointed Stefano Rossini as successor to the 39-year-old Bentivoglio that same evening. Rossini had only been fired from Piacenza on October 7th to make room for Parlato.
Rapid coaching changes are not unusual in Italy, but the antics at Piacenza are likely to be record-breaking. Italian newspapers speculated that Bentivoglio’s tenure as coach at Piacenza might even have been the shortest in history. The “Gazzetta dello Sport” scoffed: “Didn’t even have time to unpack the suitcases.”
Numerous Italian greats such as the Inzaghi brothers Simone and Filippo, Radja Nainggolan and Alberto Gilardino played at the club from Lombardy. In Serie D, Piacenza has been without a win for five league games and is in eleventh place in the table.
