Mister Di Carlo, to return to victory with his Pordenone after three rounds without success, will have to get the better of his great ex love, Vicenza.
A club, the red and white one, with which the coach collected 268 overall appearances as a player and 77 as a coach, winning a historic Italian cup on the pitch (in the 1996-’97 season with Guidolin on the bench) and a Serie C as coach in 2019/ ’20, bringing the Lane back to B after a three-year absence.
At the beginning of last season, then, came the exemption after a bad start. A little over a year has passed since the separation between Vicenza and Di Carlo in September 2021 but in reality, as often happens in these cases in the world of football, perceived time runs much faster than real time.
Vicenza, without Di Carlo, has already lived three lives, relegated from B after a season with almost only shadows, starting limping even in the current season and then finding the square in the running with the current coach, Francesco Modesto.
And with the latter she doesn’t want to stop winning: thanks to yesterday’s win in the Coppa Italia, she reached 6 victories in a row (5 in the league).
Eliminated the Viterbese
Vicenza yesterday beat Viterbese 0-2 in the quarterfinals of the Serie C Italian cup, thus flying to the semifinals despite having rested several starters.
The Vicenza side found the two winning goals between the first and second half, thanks to a brace from Scarsella, who scored in the 49th minute, in the scrum, and in the 4th minute of the second half with a nice shot after skipping a defender by exploiting so a great service by Giacomelli.
Modesto’s team played the usual full-field football of great intensity so dear to their coach, a pupil of Juric and Gasperini, who he had as a player at Genoa.
On Sunday, against the neroverdi, there will be no ex Valietti, as well as midfielder Ronaldo, Cataldi, who was injured yesterday, and Jimenez, who is disqualified; midfielder Michele Cavion will probably recover. In the Cup, however, even the second lines have shown that they are ready and involved in the project.
The former historian
In addition to Mimmo Di Carlo, the black and green defender Bruscagin and Valietti from Vicenza, a great double ex from Sunday’s match belongs to the past and is the late Ezio Vendrame. The Casarsa footballer and writer, who died on April 4, 2020, wrote some of the most important pages of his career with the Vicenza shirt, with which he made his debut and played in Serie A.
In red and white, Vendrame amazed Italy with his great quality and imagination, also showing off his histrionic nature.
Sunday’s challenge will forever be associated with his name, given that he also wrote history with Pordenone, winning the D in 78/79 and then remaining in the province both as a footballer and as a coach, in the amateurs. To get out of the mini-crisis, the green lizards will also need a little imagination from Vendrame on Sunday.