How a ‘miracle’ season ended the ‘age of innocence’ in Italian soccer

A majestic figure dressed in blue collects the ball on the halfway line of the soccer pitch and sprints down the wing. A despairing defender, adorned in the iconic black and white of Juventus, attempts to keep up before trying to cynically bring the attacker down, all to no avail. In front of over 40,000 adoring fans, the man evades another defender before rifling the ball into the bottom corner, sparking elation. It was an extraordinary goal, made even more remarkable when the celebrations afterwards revealed that the scorer – Preben Elkjær Larsen – had lost his shoe in the process. Elkjær Larsen’s celebrations included pointing to his now shoeless goalscoring foot and his teammates joining him in expressing their incredulity of the moment. “Il gol senza scarpa” or “the goal without a shoe” is a fitting microcosm of the miraculous 1984-85 season from Hellas Verona, in which the provincial team from the north of Italy stunned the historic heavyweights of Serie A to win the Italian title. The “grinta” (determination) Elkjær Larsen showed to overcome the loss of the shoe personified the spirit shown by the Gialloblù over the course of a miraculous season, sealing the club’s one and only Scudetto. Forty years on from the title and the team’s squad is still celebrated as heroes in the city; before Verona’s home game the day before the May 12 anniversary against Lecce, a group of the players returned to the stadium for a special ceremony to commemorate their achievement. The club told CNN Sports that it organized a five-day exhibition at its Bentegodi stadium which included photos, videos and historical memorabilia from that year. It said that the exhibition sold out in a few days, attracting more than 3,000 people while fans turned up an hour early for the 40-year celebrations ahead of the game against Lecce to serenade their returning heroes. Author Richard Hough, who has lived in Verona for 14 years, recounts the tale of that magical season in Verona Campione: The Miracle of 85, a celebration of the impossible and a “really positive story to tell about the football club.” It’s a story involving planning, perseverance and a fair share of colorful characters, and one which has later been overshadowed for some by the social, economic and political changes Verona – located between Milan and Venice – as a city has gone through. But one thing is for certain: the 1984-85 Hellas Verona season will live long in the memory of those involved. An eclectic group Soccer in Italy in the 1980s was the place-to-be for world stars. The Azzurri had won the World Cup in 1982 – including one of the greatest games in soccer history when the Italians beat Brazil 3-2 in the second-round group stage – and many of the biggest names from across the world plied their trade in the country at the domestic level. Argentina superstar Diego Maradona arrived at Napoli in 1984, three-time Ballon d’Or winner Michel Platini was at Juventus, Germany’s Karl-Heinz Rummenigge was at Inter Milan and Brazil stars Sócrates and Zico were at Fiorentina and Udinese, respectively. Comparatively, Hellas Verona was living in a vastly different realm. The team began the 1980s in Italy’s second tier, Serie B, before it began its “project” of becoming a stable Serie A club, Hough explains. They first did so by appointing the “relatively unknown manager” Osvaldo Bagnoli in 1981 which paid immediate dividends, earning them promotion soon after and finishing fourth in their first season back in the top-flight. Bagnoli built his team with a collection of cast-offs from bigger clubs, players who had faltered on grander stages and had something to prove. Goalkeeper Claudio Garella, club captain Roberto Tricella, winger Pierino “Pietro” Fanna and diminutive attacker Giuseppe Galderisi all had been released from top-level clubs because of perceived flaws. Bagnoli molded these unheralded players into the formidable spine of a team and – thanks to the club’s forward-thinking board and an injection of money through a sponsorship deal with Canon – Verona was able to add a sprinkling of European talent to the Italian core. The Verona board were present in France for Euro 1984 and on their scouting mission, spent specific time targeting two potential additions: West Germany’s Hans-Peter Briegel and Denmark’s Elkjær Larsen. Briegel, a powerful left-back, was a vital part of West Germany’s national set up while Elkjær Larsen, a hulking striker, was part of the Danish team which lost in the semifinals of Euro 1984. They were added to Verona’s squad before the 1984-85 season – a time when Italian clubs were only permitted two foreign signings – and their presence was noticeable from the first training session. “When they arrived, the Italian players were shocked by what they saw,” Hough told CNN Sports. “Today, we’re accustomed to these players who are all physically athletes. “But back in the early 1980s in Italy, they weren’t really of that stature. They saw Briegel and they just saw this absolute monster. And Elkjær Larsen was impressive physically as well. He was tall and physically very strong. The Italians were all a bit like: ‘Wow, look at these guys.’” ‘Deeply emotional moment’ The season began perfectly for the Gialloblù, winning 3-1 at home against Napoli – in Maradona’s debut – with Briegel scoring the first goal of the season on his debut. And for the remainder of the campaign, the team remained atop the league table, only joined by Inter Milan for a day. “Nobody ever really expected them to win the thing, that was never on the itinerary,” Hough explained. “The objective was really just to establish them as a credible Serie A team.” For a team lacking the star power many of their opponents possessed, it was a remarkable achievement and one which highlighted the togetherness of the squad. Hough explains that Bagnoli ensured his players remained grounded, not allowing them to even use the word “Scudetto” to banish notions of any title-winning aspirations. As for the players themselves, they held meetings between themselves to rally around the idea of winning the league. Hough says there was a meal around Christmas between players and their spouses in which Fanna said: “Guys, this is our season. If we don’t do it now, we never will.” The team’s year was punctuated with moments which encapsulated the spirit with which the squad displayed on their journey, most notably Elkjær Larsen’s shoeless goal against Juventus. “After fifty meters of running, two dribbles against Juventus with (defender Stefano) Pioli – I think he took my shoe off – I was in front of the goal, what was I supposed to do?” Elkjær Larsen remembers of the goal, per L’Arena. “I hit my leg and so I remained barefoot and I kicked. I found a nice place on my foot and I kicked. I showed my teammates that I scored without a shoe. The next day there was a lot of fuss in the newspapers. But can you score without a shoe? Of course, the only thing you need to have is pants.” Hough also highlights the 5-3 win against Udinese, where the team surrendered a three-goal lead only to score twice late on, and a 0-0 draw at AS Roma – where Garella put in an inspired performance to keep Verona in the game – as examples of the team’s fortitude. Verona lost its first game of the season in its 15th match and lost only two the entire campaign. The Gialloblù needed just a point from its penultimate game at Atalanta. A huge convoy of fans made the journey to Bergamo while thousands more listened on large speakers in Verona’s main square, the Piazza Brà. Although Atalanta took the lead, Elkjær Larsen equalized and Verona’s historic title-winning campaign was confirmed. Seemingly, the whole city poured in towards Piazza Brà to celebrate the moment, with Hough saying that in the Arena di Verona’s almost 2,000-year history, it “has never quite seen a party like it.” The party continued when the players arrived and after the team’s final game of the season, where there were parachutists, balloons and music inside the Stadio Marcantonio Bentegodi. Bagnoli, now seen as a legendary figure in the city, found time to celebrate the moment in his own special way, ducking away to the laundry room for a sweet tea with the laundry lady. And for the fans at the time, it was a “deeply emotional moment.” “They’ve never seen anything like it. Their local team, the team that they grew up following, the team on the biggest stage against some of the biggest and the best names in world football,” Hough said. “For them, it was just this emotional, exciting party like nothing else they’d ever seen before.” ‘The only clean Scudetto in Italian history’ Verona’s title was seen as a victory for the best team in Italy that year against the traditional elite. And while many other teams saw it as a deserving winner, Hough says it was a turning point for Italian soccer. The 1984-85 season was the first and only season in which referees were allocated for games by a random ballot. Typically, referees are assigned by a commission and the system was changed after a betting scandal in the early 1980s. After Verona’s Scudetto, the system reverted back to the old method of allocation. Although Hough doesn’t believe people put Verona’s success down to that one-off system, he acknowledges it’s a major talking point when it comes to discussing their success. Verona’s magical season also comes against the backdrop of a changing social, political and economic scene in Italy, one which can be seen through the lens of the club’s hardcore fans. The ultras who occupy the Bentegodi’s Curva Sud became renowned for their fanatical support during the title-winning season, but in the following years, have been in the headlines for negative reasons, whether it be violence or racist chanting. A changing landscape inside Italy – between the rise of far-right politics and mass migration – in the 1990s was reflected in Verona’s ultras, Hough explains, describing the 1984-85 season as “the end of an age of innocence” at the club. “You had this miracle achievement, the innocence then ended, times got tough again in Verona for the football team and the change in political and social and economic dynamics,” he said. “Young people at that point were looking for a sense of identity. They were looking for somewhere to express their frustration or these sometimes extreme political opinions and they found that on the Curva.” Hough says that “well-earned” reputation Verona has means it is “quite a vilified club” across Italy now. But for the Scottish author, he believes separating Verona’s standing and that magical 1984-85 season allows one to appreciate the achievements. The players are treated like heroes whenever they return to Verona – Elkjær is called “sindaco” or mayor and Hough says about Bagnoli: ‘If he was in Napoli, he would be God” – for their success against some of the biggest names in the world. Verona itself describes the members of the team as “heroes.” “Many players still have chants dedicated to them. In addition, all the players from that year recall in interviews how, even today, 40 years later, people in Verona stop them in the street to say hello or ask for a photo,” the club told CNN Sports via email. The sporting comparison Hough makes with that 1984-85 Verona season is Leicester City’s shock Premier League title win in 2015-16, a season which has gone down in sporting lore as success against the odds. But more than just what was achieved on the pitch, it was a sign that “anything was possible.” “Clubs that had the right manager and took the right approach to playing the game could achieve important things and probably for the likes of Sampdoria, for example, who would go on to win the Scudetto, it was a source of inspiration,” Hough said. And according to the club, it is an achievement that is unlikely to ever be matched again. “The reality is that in Serie A, since the three-point system was introduced in the 1994-1995 season, the championship has been won only by Juventus, Inter and Milan, and once by Roma, Lazio and Napoli,” it said. “In modern football, it seems impossible that another provincial team could win the championship again, even though Atalanta, the team from Bergamo, has shown in recent years that it is possible for provincial teams to return to greatness.”