The most Halloween team in Europe

If someone would ever read Benevento Calcio's history and the current standing, he should be legitimate to believe that the club from Campania is the victim of some sort of curse or sorcery. The Giallorossi got in Serie A this year for the first time in their history and they’re rewriting all the Italian and European records in the worst way. It’s no surprise though if you look at the history of one of the scariest football clubs in Italy, that finally arrived in the real football. 

Witched logo

Since when Benevento got promoted to Serie A, I’ve always wondered how a foreigner could explain himself the fact that a football club has a flying witch in its crest. Benevento is commonly known as “the witch city”, or better, “the janare city”. This bad reputation comes from the rituals that the Longobardic people used to conduct next to the Sabato river: some screaming women jumped around a hickory where there were some hanging snakes, or some horsing knight spiked a goatskin hang to a tree. Then, during the Papal domination, the Holy Inquisition persecuted those men and women to stop these rituals.
Following to some riots from the population, the control was let loose and Benevento stuck with the image of the witch. Benevento Calcio adopted the silhouette of the witch in its crest back in 2005, while the red-yellow color scheme is also a tribute to the city’s famous Liquore Strega (Witch Liquor), and also the name of an important literary award.

A horror story

Before being called Benevento, the city used to be Maleventum (that in Latin means "bad wind"). The Romans changed its name because they thought it was bad luck. Just like the city, the football team changed its name eight times since its first foundation back in 1929 due to multiple bankruptcies, the last one in 2005 when the Vigorito family bought the club. Sportingly speaking, Benevento had quite a sad story, except for the last two season. The Giallorossi spent most part of their history in the third tier Serie C (49 seasons), frustrating the first promotion to Serie B in 1945/46 due to financial issues. A frightful casualness is part of the Benevento history in the playoffs: since 1991, the Giallorossi lost 12 of the 14 games played. A sad playoff in the Interregional league (Juve Stabia), four lost finals (Turris, Potenza, and two times Crotone) and six forgettable Serie C semi-finals. The last runoff was against Como in 2015 and it caused a ferocious protest by tired supporters and the pro-tempore dismiss of Oreste Vigorito, who came back last year.

Rewriting the history of Serie A, in the worst way

With the last 5-1 defeat against Lazio, Benevento got its eleventh defeat in a row, matching the worst beginning of a season in one of the top-five European leagues, happened to Grenoble back in 2009. A record that Benevento is very likely to beat on Sunday when it will play at the Allianz Stadium against Juventus. Benevento is in its first season in Serie A after 87 seasons of lower leagues, but the numbers really are merciless: zero points, 4 scored goal, 29 conceded. Unfortunately, the technical value of the team is truthfully represented by its tragic standing: the core of the promoted Benevento is mostly composed of young players, arrived in the suburbs of top-level football. Footballers among 22 and 26 years, rose in prestigious football academies, with the only exception of Amato Ciciretti, that is currently carrying the team on his shoulders.