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Chievo
Full name	Associazione Calcio ChievoVerona SrL
Nickname(s)	Mussi Volanti ("Flying Donkeys"), Ceo ("Chievo")
Founded	1929
Ground	Stadio Marcantonio Bentegodi, Verona, Italy (Capacity 42,160[1])
Chairman	Luca Campedelli
Manager	Giuseppe Iachini
League	Serie B
2006-07	Serie A, 18th (relegated)
Home colours 　 Away colours

Associazione Calcio ChievoVerona^[2] (more commonly called Chievo Verona or simply Chievo) is an Italian professional football club named after and based in a suburb of Verona, Veneto, and owned by Paluani, a cake company and the inspiration for their original name, Paluani Chievo. The club is nicknamed alternatively gialloblu, mussi volanti or Ceo, and shares its stadium with Hellas which is the 42,160 seater Marcantonio Bentegodi stadium.

Chievo will play 2007-08 in Serie B, after having been relegated from Serie A after six years in the top flight.

Contents 1 History 1.1 Early years 1.2 Series of promotions 1.3 Serie A times 2 Current squad 2.1 Current first team squad 2.2 Players out on loan 3 Retired numbers 4 Notable former players 5 Colours and badge 6 Footnotes 7 External links

The team was founded in 1929 by a small number of football fans from the small borough of Chievo, a Verona neighbourhood. Initially the club was not officially affiliated to the Italian Football Federation, but played under the denomination "Ond Chievo" imposed by the fascist regime several amateur tournament and friendly matches. The formal debut in an official league is dated November 8, 1931. The team colours at the time were blue and white. However, Chievo disbanded in 1936 because of economic woes, and the team returned to play in 1948 after World War II, being registered in the regional league of "Seconda Divisione" (Second Division). In 1957 the team moved to the "Carlantonio Bottagisio" parish field, where Chievo played until 1986. In 1959, after the restructuring of the football leagues, Chievo was admitted to play the "Seconda Categoria" (Second Category), a regional league placed next-to-last in the Italian football pyramid. That year, Chievo changed its denomination to "Cardi Chievo", after the new sponsor, and was quickly promoted to the "Prima Categoria", which it left in 1962 after having experienced its first relegation ever.

In 1964, Luigi Campedelli, a businessman and owner of the Paluani company, is named new Chievo chairman. Under Campedelli's presidency, Chievo climbed the entire Italian pyramid, reaching the Serie D after the 1974/1975 season. Under the name "Paluani Chievo", the team is promoted to Serie C2 in 1986. After this promotion, Chievo was forced to move to the Stadio Marcantonio Bentegodi, the main venue in Verona; another promotion, to Serie C1, then arrived in 1989. In 1990, the team finally changed its name to the current one, "A.C. ChievoVerona".

In 1992, President Luigi Campedelli, who returned at the helm of the club two years before, died of a heart attack, and his son Luca Campedelli, aged just 23, became the new chairman. Luca Campedelli, the youngest chairman of all Italian professional football clubs, promoted Giovanni Sartori as Director of Football and named Alberto Malesani the new head coach. Under Malesani, the team astonishingly won the Serie C1 and was promoted to Serie B, where city rival Hellas Verona was playing at the time. In 1997, after Malesani signed for Fiorentina, Silvio Baldini was appointed new head coach. The following season, with Domenico Caso as new coach, saw the first dismissal ever in the presidency of Luca Campedelli, with Caso fired and replaced with Lorenzo Balestro.

In 2000/2001, Luigi Del Neri was signed as new coach, and led Chievo to a historic promotion to Serie A, the first-ever in the team's history, ending its Serie B run in third-place.

In its 2001/2002 Serie A debut, to everyone's great surprise the small and unconsidered Chievo, most critics' choice for an instant return to Serie B, quickly became the most astonishing team in the league, playing spectacular and entertaining football and even leading the top division for six consecutive weeks, finally ending the season with a highly respectable fifth place, qualifying the team to play in the UEFA Cup.

In 2002/2003, Chievo debuted at the European level but were eliminated in the first round against Red Star Belgrade. The team finished the Serie A season in seventh place, again proving itself one of the most valued Serie A teams. The 2003/2004 season, the last with Del Neri at the helm, saw Chievo ending in ninth place.

The 2004/2005 season is remembered as one of the toughest ever in Chievo's history. Mario Beretta, a Serie A novice from Ternana, was named new coach: after a good start which brought Chievo to a third place behind Juventus and AC Milan, the team slowly lost positions in the Serie A table. Three matches before the end of the league, Chievo was third from last, a position which would relegate it to Serie B. As a last resort Beretta was fired and Maurizio D'Angelo, a highly respected former Chievo player, was appointed temporarily to replace him as coach. Morale improved, and two wins and a tie from the final three matches proved just enough to keep Chievo in Serie A.

In 2005/2006, Giuseppe Pillon of Treviso FBC was appointed as new coach. The team experienced a throwback to the successful Del Neri era, both in style of play and results, and Chievo consequently gained a place in the next UEFA Cup, ending the season in a solid seventh place. However, because of the football scandal involving several top-class teams, all placed before Chievo in the 2005/2006 season, the Flying Donkeys had a chance of playing the next Champions League preliminary phase.

On July 14, 2006, the verdict in the scandal was made public. Juventus, AC Milan and Fiorentina, all qualified for the 2006-07 Champions League, and Lazio, originally inscribed for the 2006-07 UEFA Cup, were all banned from UEFA competition for the 2006/07 season, although AC Milan were allowed to enter the Champions League after their appeal to FIGC. Chievo took up a place in the third qualifying stage of the competition along with AC Milan and faced Bulgarian Levski Sofia. Chievo lost the first leg 2-0 in Sofia and managed a 2-2 home draw on the second leg. Levski advanced to the Champions League group stage on a 4-2 aggregate score, and Chievo was knocked out. As a Champions League third round qualifying loser, Chievo was placed in the UEFA Cup final qualifying round. On August 25, 2006 Chievo was drawn to face Portuguese Braga. The first leg, played on September 14 in Braga, ended in a shock 2-0 win for the Portuguese side. The return match, played on September 28 in Verona, was won by Chievo 2-1. However, the Italian side lost 3-2 on aggregate and was knocked out of any further European competitions.

On October 16, 2006, following a 1-0 defeat against Torino F.C., head coach Giuseppe Pillon was fired, and replaced by Luigi Del Neri, one of the original symbols of the miracle Chievo, who had led the club to Serie A in 2002.

On May 27, 2007, the last match day of the 2006-07 Serie A season, Chievo was one of five teams in danger of falling into the last undecided relegation spot. Needing only a tie against Catania, a direct competitor in the relegation battle, Chievo lost 2-0 playing in the neutral field of Bologna. Simultaneous wins by Parma, Siena and Reggina condemed Chievo to Serie B for the 2007-08 season after six seasons in the senior league.

As of September 8, 2007^[3]

No. Position Player 1 GK Gabriele Aldegani 2 FW Federico Cossato 3 DF Tommaso Chiecchi 4 DF Andrea Mantovani 5 DF Davide Mandelli 6 DF Marco Malagò 7 MF Michele Marcolini 8 MF Federico Giunti 9 MF Simone Bentivoglio 10 MF Luciano 11 FW Antimo Iunco 14 MF Maurizio Ciaramitaro (on loan from Palermo) 15 FW Giuseppe Greco (on loan from Genoa) 17 GK Mattia Passarini 18 GK Lorenzo Squizzi

No. Position Player 19 FW Marcos 20 FW Victor Nsofor Obinna 21 MF Jonathan Biabiany (on loan from Internazionale) 22 DF Cesare Rickler 23 MF Michele Troiano 26 MF Stefano Garzon 27 DF Fabio Moro (on loan from AS Roma) 28 MF Aleandro Rosi 29 FW Mirco Gasparetto 31 FW Sergio Pellissier (captain) 34 DF César 42 GK Massimo Zappino (on loan from Frosinone) 47 DF Giovanni Marchese 77 MF Vincenzo Italiano DF Andrea Mei (on loan from Internazionale)

81		FW	Erjon Bogdani (on loan to Livorno)[4]
		FW	Gennaro Troianello (on loan to Frosinone)[5]
		MF	Diego Santos Oliveira (on loan to Cittadella)[6]
		DF	David Silva Fernandez (on loan to Varese)[6]
		MF	Valquinei de Jesus Santos (on loan to Varese)[6]
		GK	Vincenzo Sicignano (on loan to Frosinone)[6]
		FW	Xhulian Rrudho (on loan to Sansovino)[7][8]
		DF	Marcus N'Ze (on loan to Sansovino)[7][8]
		DF	Leonardo Moracci (on loan to Sansovino)[7][8]
		FW	Luca Spinetti (on loan to Sansovino)[7][8]
		MF	Maycol Andriani (on loan to Sansovino)[7][8]

• 6 Maurizio D'Angelo, sweeper/centre back, 1988-1989, 1991-2002, 2003-2004
• 30 Jason Mayélé, left/right winger, 2001-2002 (posthumous)

• See Also: Category:A.C. ChievoVerona players
• Simone Barone
• Oliver Bierhoff
• Saša Bjelanović
• Matteo Brighi
• Eugenio Corini
• Bernardo Corradi
• Stefano Fiore
• Alberto Fontana
• Salvatore Lanna
• Nicola Legrottaglie
• Cristiano Lupatelli
• Massimo Marazzina
• Luca Marchegiani
• Christian Manfredini
• John Mensah
• Simone Perrotta
• Flavio Roma
• Mario Alberto Santana
• Franco Semioli

The club's historic nickname is gialloblu (from the club colors of yellow and blue), but is more often referred to today as the mussi volanti ("flying donkeys" in the Verona dialect of Venetian). Local supporters often call the club simply Ceo, which is Veronese for Chievo. The "flying donkeys" nickname was originally a derogatory term from a playful match chant sung by fans from crosstown rivals Hellas Verona, who claimed Chievo had stolen Hellas' colors, name, and stadium. Hellas fans also said that "donkeys would fly before Chievo made it to Serie A". However, with later successes by Chievo and contemporaneous Serie B and Serie C1 struggles for Hellas Verona, Chievo fans have now largely embraced the nickname as a badge of honour.

The current club crest represents instead Cangrande I della Scala, an ancient seignor from Verona.

• Official site (Italian) (English)

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