Verona is home to one of the great tragedies.
No, not Romeo and Juliet.
We’re referring of course to Chievo’s start to their Serie A campaign.
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Currently sitting rock bottom of Serie A on minus 1 points and, with half the board suspended, the writing appears to be on the wall for the Serie A underdogs already.
They received a three point deduction and a $200,000 fine for ‘false accounting’.
Essentially they fabricated transfer fees of younger players that they were transferring in and out with Cesena – a club affiliated with Chievo.
The club president, Luca Campedelli, categorically denies any wrong doings and tried to contest the August ruling.
Last season, Chievo survived relegation by five points, so a three point setback isn’t the end of the world, right?
Wrong. This season has been a car crash since the 75th minute of their opener against Juventus.
Chievo were 2-1 up against Juve on Cristiano Ronaldo’s debut.
However, after an own goal and a Federico Bernardeschi winner in injury time, nothing seems to be going right for the Veronans.
Another setback from that game came when the Chievo goalkeeper’s head clashed with Ronaldo’s iron thigh – causing whiplash and a broken nose.
Following the Juventus defeat they lost 6-1 to Fiorentina and drew twice against Empoli and Roma.
The court ruling was when things went from bad to… well, really bad.
In the seven games since the announcement, the one point they have got was the impressive 2-2 draw away at Roma.
They have been beaten six times in a row since then – scoring three in that time and conceding 14.
Incredibly, after ten games they are still on negative points.
Already ten points off safety, you have to wonder if their season is over before it really got started?
Giampiero Ventura, the Cheivo boss claimed his side were out of their 5-1 defeat to Atalanta after only a few minutes.
“It’s a game we can’t even comment on, because it was clear after five minutes that we were getting nothing out of it,” he said despondently.
Hardly what you want to hear from the man in charge of turning the bad form around…
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