Italy's Serie C team fielded 7 athletes and lost 20 to 0. Historic rout occurred in the match between Cuneo and Pro Piacenza
Sunk in financial crisis, the modest Pro Piacenza, a team from the third division of the Italian championship, starred this Sunday (17) in one of the most bizarre scenes in Italian football.
The team selected just seven players – the only ones they had – for the match against Cuneo and were humiliated 20-0.
The score left the Italian press astonished. “A black page for Italian football”, wrote Corriere Dell'Umbria.
“A surreal, sad and shameful page of Piacentino football was written today”, published Libertà.
The reaction also came from the Italian Football Federation: “This was the last farce. What happened to Pro Piacenza is an insult to the sport and its principles,” Gabriele Gravina, president of the organization, told a TV network. To make matters worse, Damiano Tommasi, leader of the athletes' union, called for the “exclusion (from the championship) as quickly as possible” of the losers.
With just 7 players, the team lost 20-0. Photo: La Stampa
The historic defeat happened because the under-20 team tried to avoid defeat by WO and elimination from Serie C.
Since last Thursday (14), when the Italian football federation revealed that the game would need to be played, the team has done everything to guarantee the minimum number of athletes for the match. Even the team's masseur was scheduled to play.
Currently, the team, which has not played for three rounds and is facing punishments for late wages, is in last place in the championship, having collected just eight points in 20 games.
At 10 minutes into the first half, the score was already 4-0. At the end of the stage, Cuneo was winning 16-0.
In the second half, Pro Piacenza selected the eighth player, who arrived late after having problems with his identity document. However, the home team scored four more goals, closing the score.
Founded in 1919, in the city of Piacenza (in Portuguese, Placencia), in the Emilia-Romagna region, this is the club's first season in a professional championship dispute.
FOLLOW ITALIANISM
