U.S. Avellino

Football club infobox
clubname = Avellino


fullname = Unione Sportiva Avellino SpA
nickname = "Lupi" ("wolves"),
"Biancoverdi" ("white-greens"),
"Irpini" (Irpinians)
founded = 1912
ground = Stadio Partenio,
Avellino, Italy
capacity = 26,308
chairman = Marco Pugliese
manager = Giuseppe Incocciati
league = Serie B
season = 2007-08
position = Serie B, 19th
pattern_la1=_whiteshoulders|pattern_b1=_thinwhitesides|pattern_ra1=_whiteshoulders
leftarm1=008000|body1=008000|rightarm1=008000|shorts1=008000|socks1=008000
pattern_la2=_shouldersonwhite|pattern_b2=_thinsidesonwhite|pattern_ra2=_shouldersonwhite
leftarm2=008000|body2=008000|rightarm2=008000|shorts2=ffffff|socks2=FFFFFF

Unione Sportiva Avellino is an Italian football club, based in Avellino, Campania. The club was founded in 1912. Its colours are white and green.

The club is currently playing Serie B in the season 2008-09 after having achieved promotion via the Serie C1 playoffs in 2006–07.

History

The club was founded during 1912 to give the town of Avellino a footballing representative. The early history of the club is quite obscure as they only competed at a lower level against regional sides. Avellino competed in "IV Divisione" from 1913 until after the Second World War; today's equivalent of that level is Serie D.

Post-War emergence

For the earlier part of their history the club did not achieve anything of note, until being placed in Serie C for the 1945–46 post-War season. In the 1946–47 season they narrowly missed out on getting through to the interregional final, after finishing third in their group.

Avellino beat out the likes of Catania, Reggina and Messina to win promotion to Serie B at the end of the 1940s. However, the club were accused of match fixing and the federation decided to strip them of their promotion, instead relegating them down to Serie D. Although they were able to return to Serie C after one season, Avellino were relegated back down to spend six seasons in a row at Serie D level.

Eventually Avellino returned, but they were very much a yo-yo club during the early part of the 1960s. Evidently in the space of just six seasons, Avellino gained promotion to Serie C in three of them and were relegated back down twice.

Rise

Avellino were promoted to Serie B in 1973 and Serie A in 1978. A truly remarkable feat for a southern provincial side was a 10-year stay in Serie A between 1978 and 1988, with the club holding a mid-table place for the majority of that period. Their best finish was 8th in 1987, with a team starring Angelo Alessio, Paolo Benedetti, Franco Colomba and Dirceu. The club has tended to shift between Serie B and C1 in the years since.

More recently, the club marked a Serie B return after defeating neighbours Napoli in the Serie C1/B play-off finals. A unsuccessful 2005-06 campaign ended in a loss on relegation playoffs to Albinoleffe (0-2, 3-2). The 2006-07 season, with Giuseppe Galderisi as head coach, then replaced by Giovanni Vavassori, ended in a second place in the Serie C1/B regular season; this was then followed by a successful campaign in the promotion playoffs, in which Avellino defeated Foggia in the finals, being therefore promoted to Serie B once again. However, this was followed by Vavassori's resignations on July 16, 2007, shortly after his confirmation as Avellino boss, [cite news|url=http://www.usavellino.it/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=767|title=ALLENATORE PRIMA SQUADRA|author=US Avellino|language=Italian|date=2007-07-16|accessdate=2007-07-16] being then replaced by Maurizio Sarri two days later.cite news |title=ALLENATORE PRIMA SQUADRA|url=http://www.usavellino.it/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=773 |publisher= US Avellino|language=Italian |date= 2007-07-18 |accessdate=2007-07-18 ] Sarri himself resigned one month later, being replaced by Guido Carboni and later Alessandro Calori. Despite this, the club did not manage to escape relegation, ending the season in 19th place. The club was however readmitted to Serie B later on to fill a league vacancy created by Messina's disbandment.

Current squad

"As of 2008-09-15" [cite web|http://www.usavellino.it/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=82&Itemid=19|title=SQUADRA|publisher=U.S. Avellino|language=Italian|accessdate=2007-09-15]

Notable former players

*flagicon|Italy Stefano Colantuono
*flagicon|Italy Matteo Contini
*flagicon|Lithuania Tomas Danilevičius
*flagicon|Italy Fernando De Napoli
*flagicon|Argentina Ramón Díaz
*flagicon|Brazil Dirceu
*flagicon|Belarus Vitali Kutuzov
*flagicon|Italy Fabio Pecchia
*flagicon|Italy Fabrizio Ravanelli
*flagicon|Austria Walter Schachner
*flagicon|Italy Vittorio Tosto
*flagicon|Brazil Juary
*flagicon|Peru Geronimo Barbadillo
*flagicon|Italy Salvatore Bagni
*flagicon|Italy Beniamino Vignola
*flagicon|Italy Stefano Tacconi
*flagicon|Italy Luciano Favero
*flagicon|Italy Giampietro Tagliaferri
*flagicon|Italy Mario Piga
*flagicon|Brazil Batista
*flagicon|Greece Nikos Anastopoulos
*flagicon|Honduras Julio César de León

Notable former coaches

*flagicon|Poland Zbigniew Boniek
*flagicon|Italy Francesco Graziani
*flagicon|Croatia Tomislav Ivić
*flagicon|Italy Giuseppe Papadopulo
*flagicon|Italy Nedo Sonetti

Honours

*Serie C1:*Champions: 2002–03:*Runners-up: 1994–95, 2004–05, 2006–07
*Coppa Italia Serie C:*Runners-up: 1972–73

References

External links

* [http://www.usavellino.it/ Official Site]
* [http://www.avellinocalcio.net/ An Unofficial Site]