While Napoli and Inter vie for the Scudetto, there’s a club still chasing the feat of all feats. The incredible story of Audace Cerignola, the team everyone should be rooting for

Having earned a place in the Guinness World Records for waiting 85 years to return to Serie C, Audace was on the verge of reaching Serie B when they were stripped of 7 points: but it’s not over yet!

(Translated into English by Grok)

I’m well aware that in just a few hours, Napoli and Inter will be battling for the Scudetto, and not only their fans but all football enthusiasts will have their eyes glued and ears tuned to the stadiums in Naples (where Napoli face Cagliari) and Como (for Como-Inter). It’s perfectly clear to me that, compared to the drama that will unfold tonight in this long-distance showdown, everything else pales in significance. Yet, I want to seize this very day—the day when the glory of a monumental triumph will either flood the city of Naples or Inter’s Milan—to tell you about a team that, in its own small way, was on the cusp of glory and had it cruelly snatched away in a manner that still stings today. If you have two minutes to spare, I’d like to tell you—please, don’t laugh—about Società Sportiva Audace Cerignola, which, when it was founded in 1912, was christened Gruppo Sportivo Cerignola.

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I believe hardly anyone knows, perhaps not even in Cerignola (a town of 57,000 inhabitants in the province of Foggia), that the football club now called Audace entered the Guinness World Records four years ago, at the end of the 2020-21 season when it earned promotion to Serie C, for a not-so-flattering record: Audace is the Italian club with the longest absence from its last professional championship, with a staggering 85 years between its final appearance in Serie C (back in the 1936-37 season) and its return to the division at the end of the 2020-21 season.

Now, if a football club has waited nearly a century to celebrate a milestone like the long-awaited return to professional football, even in the lowest tier, imagine the joy it could savor if, just four years later, that same club managed the unthinkable—almost fantastical—feat of climbing even higher up the football pyramid and securing promotion to Serie B. It would be unbelievable. “You’re about to enter the Twilight Zone,” as the opening of the famous 1960s TV series The Twilight Zone used to say.

Well, few may know this, but Audace Cerignola nearly pulled it off. Competing in Group C of Serie C alongside clubs with storied histories and pedigrees like Catania, Foggia, Messina, Avellino, and Benevento—all clubs with recent Serie A experience—the Puglia-based club, with its 7,453-seat Domenico Monterisi stadium, yellow and blue colors, and a stork as its symbol, managed the remarkable feat, two-thirds into the season, of leading the standings with a three-point advantage over second-placed Avellino. After 29 matchdays, the table read: Audace Cerignola 61, Avellino 58. And then, the unthinkable happened.

Within a matter of days, with two separate statements issued on March 7 and March 12, 2025, the Serie C League announced that Turris and Taranto, two clubs in Group C, had been excluded and expelled for serious administrative irregularities. This led to the annulment of all results achieved by the other 18 clubs in matches played against them. Just like that, Audace Cerignola, which had beaten Turris 3-0 and 5-1 (earning 6 points) and drawn 0-0 with Taranto (1 point), was stripped of 7 points, while Avellino, which had lost 0-1 to Taranto and drawn 0-0 and won 3-1 against Turris (earning 4 points), lost 4 points. You can do the math yourself: with 7 points deducted compared to Avellino’s 4, Cerignola’s three-point lead over the Irpini vanished overnight.

And so, it was back to square one. In the end, Avellino crossed the finish line first in the mutilated, truncated championship.

Sad? For those who truly love football (or rather, sport), and with all due respect to Avellino, which simply capitalized on the windfall from Turris and Taranto’s exclusion, the blow dealt to Audace Cerignola is a wound that hurts. Yes, tonight Napoli and Inter will play 90 minutes for the Scudetto, and on Sunday, Juventus, Roma, and Lazio will battle for the fourth Champions League spot. But personally, what matters most to me is following the playoff adventure in Serie C of a club almost no one has heard of: Audace Cerignola, led by president Nicola Grieco, coach Giuseppe Raffaele, and star strikers Francesco Paolo Salvemini and Garo Capomaggio, an Argentine from La Plata.

Because, yes, you should know that Cerignola’s second-place finish behind Avellino still earned them a spot in the Serie C playoffs. And Audace kicked things off in style, eliminating none other than Atalanta Under 23 in the first round. Now, Audace Cerignola will face Pescara, coached by Silvio Baldini (remember him? He managed Serie A clubs like Empoli, Palermo, Parma, and Catania), in the semifinals—first leg on Sunday, return leg on Wednesday, May 28. And if all goes well—my apologies to Pescara—Audace would advance to the final for promotion to Serie B against the winner of Vicenza-Ternana. Ever heard of David versus Goliath? Well, that’s more or less the story here.

I had to Google which province Cerignola is in, and I think I passed through it briefly in the 1980s when I was following the Giro d’Italia cycling race in a car for the newspaper Il Giorno. I know nothing and have no connection to this town south of the Tavoliere. But I’ve followed, with growing curiosity, the ups and downs of its football club. And in particular, its latest small-yet-great feat that only bad luck interrupted at the crucial moment.

Only interrupted, though. Because on Sunday, there’s Cerignola-Pescara. Ever since I was a kid, I’ve been a huge fan of The Twilight Zone. I loved watching things that seemed impossible become, one day, miraculously and concretely possible.