Pre-Season 2021
Cristiano Scazzola's Piacenza enjoyed a mixed-bag of results across their seven pre-season friendlies with the most noticeable result coming in a 3-1 victory against Serie A side Sampdoria at the Leonardo Garilli.
Piacenza began preparations for the upcoming season with a trio of games against fellow-Serie C outfits in the form of AC Siena, US Palermo and Fermana with varying results. Beginning with a 1-1 draw against Siena, a 2-1 loss followed against an optimistic Palermo side with ambitions of returning to Serie B.
A 2-0 victory against Fermana of Lega Pro Girone B would mark Scazzola's first victory of pre-season as Davide Munari and Yusupha Bobb netted.
A full-strength Bologna side made no mistake during their trip to the city. Marko Arnautovic would bag a brace in a convincing performance although the hosts wouldn't disgrace themselves across the ninety minutes. Defender Andrea Corbari scored with ten minutes to play to make it 2-1, however, Emanuel Vignato wrapped it up for the visitors just before stoppage-time.
Luca Castaglia has been the star of the show during pre-season for Piacenza. Having already scored twice, he would score the decisive goal in a 1-0 victory over Bari. This result would proceed the impressive 3-1 victory over Sampdoria in-front of just under 2,500 spectators.
Sampdoria would name the likes of Mikkel Damsgaard, Stefano Sensi and Antonio Candreva in the starting eleven. However, Marco Giampaolo's men were second-best to Piacenza over ninety minutes, amassing just one shot on target from six efforts on goal.
It would be a fairly underwhelming conclusion to the campaign though with a 0-0 bore-fest at Imperia.
Piacenza will now turn their attention to the Coppa Italia Lega Pro Cup as they face Virtus Verona, also of Girone A, in the first round. The league season will begin a week later on Sunday 29th August with a home-tie against Pergolettese 1932.
Transfers
There were two further additions to the existing squad. The first of these was the signing of full-back Gianluca Clemente from fellow-Girone A side Pro Vercelli. The 25-year-old defender arrives for a cut-price fee of just £10,000 having set his previous employers back £44,500 just twelve months ago.
Clemente made twenty-six appearances for Pro Vercelli last season, scoring once, and arrives to play as first-choice right-back ahead of Tino Parisi.
The other addition to the squad is Giacoma Olzer who arrives on a season-long-loan from Serie B side Brescia. The 20-year-old Italian arrived at Brescia earlier this summer from AC Milan for a fee of around £250,000 but has been shipped-out for the season to provide the creative-midfielder first-team minutes.
Although there is competition in the 'number ten' role from the vastly experienced Alessandro Cesarini, Olzer will likely be a regular influence this season given the volume of games across Piacenza's schedule this campaign.
Replies
Jack: It often seems that managers will come in and promise the world. I think that managing expectations is a sensible way to go about things, especially for a club like Piacenza who have fallen upon hard times. There will be some doubt, I would imagine, if suddenly wild expectations were to emerge from a club who finished mid-table just a few months prior.J_ames: Haha! You're right about that. Football management tends to age a lot of managers.
1
