Crotone’s campaign for Calcio di Calabria

Date: 20th May 2017 at 11:43pm
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The Pythagoreans have spent the entirety of the 2016-17 season in the bottom three and – despite picking up more points than any other side in the last eight games – it looks as though Crotone will drop straight back into Serie B

When 2017 dawned on us, there looked to be only two certainties in Serie A; that Juventus would claim a sixth consecutive Scudetto and that Crotone would be relegated.

The small Calabrese club suffered in the opening months of their first season in the top flight, falling a long way short of the quality Serie A demands.

However, they have since embarked on an astounding turnaround and while their style won’t excite the disciples of Joga Bonito, every fan of Italian football should jump on board the bandwagon supporting the Pythagorean’s fight for survival.

It’s no secret that Italy’s most powerful football clubs lie firmly in the north. Napoli have provided a refreshing reminder in recent seasons of what lies south of Rome. However, there’s still the question of some 400km further south of the Stadio San Paolo.

As far as football is concerned, it’s often viewed as somewhat of a vast, baron waste land, scarce of any meaningful civilisations.

One only has to look at the list of Italian Champions to appreciate the shear magnitude of the north-south split, where out of 120 top-flight titles, only two have been won by a team south of the capital on the mainland. Those two being courtesy of a Diego Maradona-led Napoli.

While there have been fleeting moments of mild success from clubs like Foggia and Bari, southern clubs have more often than not failed to entrench themselves as successful professional entities and many have fallen into financial hardship over the years.

Crotone, of course, are no exception, operating off the back of a miniscule transfer budget in a city of just 62,000 people. In fact prior to the new millennium, the Squali had never ventured higher than Serie C in 90 years of existence.

Heralding from Calabria, the Rossoblu have been the region’s only Serie A representatives since Reggina’s relegation in 2009 (now competing in Lega Pro C).

Italians, unlike their English, German and Spanish counterparts, have not been able spread the sport’s wealth across the country. So much so, that Crotone are not located within 300 kilometres of another top flight club.

Sure, this is largely a reflection of the country’s economic situation, though Italian football will never truly succeed in the south without clubs that can effectively represent the population.

Many of us have been attached to clubs for longer than the mind can legibly recall, be it Juventus, Inter, AC Milan or another. It’s sad to think that, as a child of Calabrian heritage, there was never a club from the region to cling on to.

The next generation of Calabrese, or even southerners, could certainly use a club to inspire them and help dilute fan support away from the north.

While Atalanta will claim the title of this season’s fairytale, Crotone’s very existence in the top-flight should be celebrated, so why not get behind them in their fight for survival?

Just last season, according to transfermarkt.com, they earned automatic promotion from Serie B with a squad value of less than all but one of the league’s competitors.

Crotone are now a club who last month defeated Inter, a team that spent approximately 26 times more on transfers than them last summer (H/T again to transfermarkt.com). They have now accumulated more points over the last eight matches than the champions-in-waiting Juventus, who boast a squad market value around 18 times more than that of their southern counterparts.

In fact, even Empoli and Genoa, the two other clubs involved in the relegation scrap, boast a market value of €15 and €54 million more than Crotone respectively.

Everyone likes a feel-good story, and Calabria could certainly use a club that can develop and grow in Italy’s first division. The Tuscans have two clubs, as does the city of Genoa, so if you need an underdog to back, get behind the Calebrese and help carry Crotone to safety in Serie A this season.

#SalvaISquali

 

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