Reggio Calabria, a City Dreams

Everybody could imagine that the beautiful story with a happy ending could come to an end with the event awaited for more than half a century. A team from Reggio Calabria finally included in the Italian football elite. The conquest of the first division was an exciting achievement and this target was reached at the finishing tape thanks to a victory on a field where Juventus conquered many Italian titles. Last July, at the "Delle Alpi" stadium, the invasion of the pitch by more than one thousand Reggina supporters after victory over Torino, thanks to which the team was promoted into the first division, was only a small sign. Indeed, the crazy core of a city that painfully waited for a rendezvous with history, was already in the streets of Reggio Calabria to claim the right of being now a great football team. After that Naples and Palermo had disappeared from the Italian football geography, there was the need for another team that could inherit the role of leading team in Southern Italy. This gap was filled thanks to president Foti's enthusiasm and the incredible support provided by fans, who accompanied the team in its march towards the first division. Yet, the Reggina's miracle does not seem to have ended here. When the new calendar of the matches was made known, everybody assumed that the real championship of the Calabrian team, i.e. the one proposing more accessible matches, would start right after the domestic match with Piacenza, another team whose target is to manage to stay in the first division. In theory, the opening matches with Juventus, Fiorentina and Bologna, which are among the strongest teams, should have provided very few scores for the club trained by Colomba.
Moreover, there was also another important unknown factor, that is the "Granillo" stadium, which was being renovated and maybe would not be ready for the opening match. What state of mind would accompany this group of boys making their debut in the first division without even having support from their incredible public?
However, the team and the people involved in the restoration works combined their efforts, and now we can really talk about an astonishing Reggina that was able to surprise the whole country. As everybody assumed, the team trained by Colomba would manage to gain its first important scores from domestic victory over Piacenza, last Sunday. On the contrary, when looking at the place-list, the Calabrian team is currently placed just behind Inter and Lazio, the favourite billionaire clubs, and even precedes many "aristocratic" clubs. For example that Juventus that was not able to win over the determination of the team-leader Giacchetta and his teammates in the first match of the championship at the "Delle Alpi", the stadium where, as previously said, the long-awaited miracle had taken place. And Reggina has also the same points as Fiorentina, the team that has first experienced that the strong emotional impact and the warmth of Reggina's supporters at the "Granillo" stadium can even fill some major gaps.
Now the southern city, currently the most important in Italy from the viewpoint of sport, only begs not to be awakened from this wonderful dream. For his part, Colomba holds back all enthusiasm and declares that this favourable moment and the enthusiasm deriving from it mainly serve to accumulate points for next winter, when hard times will unavoidably come. But in the meantime his assistants do not give up dreaming about and also remind him that in Calabria it could be very hot in winter, too...
 

 

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