However, in 2001, a real miracle happened: donkeys did learn to fly. More precisely, “Chievo” entered Serie A, for a while relegating the more famous team of the same name from the famous city of Verona to the shadows.
In that first season, the “donkeys” – this nickname stuck to “Chievo”, which was no longer considered offensive – made a noise to fame. The team, led by the extravagant coach Luigi Delneri (there is still a variant spelling of the last name Del Neri), who lisped and stuttered, took fifth place in the debut elite season, and at the height of the season was in first place. “Verona” was not in Serie A that season.
And a little later, “Chievo” finished in fourth place in series A. However, such a high tournament position of the “donkeys” was explained not only by their agility, but also by the fact that points were taken from several teams in that season as part of the famous “Calciopoli”.
But the fairy tale of “flying donkeys” did not last long. Although looking at how to count. For 17 seasons, these Verona players played in the Italian championship, after which they returned to the place where they had floundered before.
And in the summer of 2021, “Chievo” was expelled for debts from series B immediately into series D – the fourth Italian division, already an amateur one. It got to the point that this club ceased to exist. But thanks to the active intervention (and financial in particular) of former team captain Pellissier, “Chievo” was revived. And now this once fun team is down there in the fourth division. Although he is trying to return to his circles.
This is my big introduction – not by chance. And here’s why. A few days ago, the iconic football player for Shakhtar fans – midfielder Douglas Costa – joined this team. Well, you don’t have to be a big fan to remember this very technical and even faster attacking player.
As part of Shakhtar, Douglas won everything at the national level. But he did not have time to win the UEFA Cup: at that time he was not yet in the Donetsk team.
Getty Images/Global Images Ukraine. Douglas Costa In the summer of 2015, Shakhtar sold Douglas Costa to Bayern Munich. For 30 million euros. And as part of the Munich team, Douglas became a champion. As a matter of fact, the fast-footed Brazilian collected trophies as part of Juventus. He has a Scudetto. And in total, if you count “Shakhtar”, “Bavaria” and “Juve”, Douglas Costa has more than twenty trophies on his personal account.
In addition, he left a noticeable mark in the Champions League: he played 76 matches, in which he scored 11 goals. Well, and to top it all off: Douglas Costa played 31 matches for the Brazilian national team. Agree, this is a lot considering the very serious competition in that national team. Especially in the offensive line.
And here is such a master, albeit not the first “freshness” – Douglas is already 35 years old – decided to move to the football backyard. Yes, Verona is a nice city, but probably not so much that such a famous player would spend the end of his football career there.
Actually, that’s exactly how I looked at this news at first. Well, how can this be at all? This is something like if Andriy Yarmolenko moved to Fastiv’s “Refrigerator”, with all due respect to both Yarmola and “Refrigerator”.
Even the fact that Douglas’s career has not been going well lately, to put it mildly, didn’t bother me much. After Juventus, in 2023, Costa moved to the MLS – to the Los Angeles Galaxy. It did not take root there. He returned to his homeland – to Fluminense. But he did not reach special heights there either.
And then quite unexpectedly left for Australia. In “Sydney”. He seemed to have a good score there, and scored and assisted, but lasted a little more than a year. Although this time the winger left the team not for sports reasons. And through personal, let’s call it that.
Getty Images/Global Images Ukraine. Sydney Douglas Costa left for personal reasons The fact is that in Brazil, Douglas was accused of non-payment of alimony. And this non-payment is not small – about one hundred thousand dollars. Douglas was sentenced to a month’s arrest by court order. “Sydney” was prepared to wait for the disgraced Brazilian legionnaire to fly to the Motherland and solve all his personal problems, but Costa made it clear that it would take too long to solve the problems. Therefore, the Australian club and the Brazilian football player decided to terminate relations by mutual consent of the parties.
And now, after “Sydney” in the multi-faceted career of the former “Shakhtar” star, the amateur “Chievo” was drawn. Strange, incomprehensible…
But if you dig a little deeper, you can find at least a little “understandability” in this transfer. It turns out that the owner of “Chievo” is a certain Pietro Laterza. Even for a fan with a huge experience, this name will mean nothing. And it shouldn’t say almost anything. Unless it says that Laterza is another owner of the Emirati club “Al-Ittifaq”.
According to the reports of the Italian press, Douglas will shine in the lower ranks of Italian football until the end of the current season, after which he will safely drop a much more profitable project called “Al-Ittifaq”. There you will be able to earn money not only for overdue alimony, but also cool cars, which Douglas has loved since Donetsk.
And the famous Balotelli introduced the owner of “Chievo” to Douglas. “SuperMario” is already in “Al Ittifaq”, and it is thanks to his patronage that another star downed pilot should come to this team this summer.
Source: sport.ua