Football pundits around the world are always of the opinion that domestic league tables are not worth of any scrutiny before the season reaches its halfway mark, somewhere in the crucial December-January period.
The Italian championship is no exception even though there are already clear indications of which teams are on the right track and those finding the going tough and possibly risk not reaching pre-set targets.
Chievo, commonly known as the Flying Donkeys, is a typical example of a team that achieved much more than originally expected from them so far.
Last season, despite operating on a very restricted budget, they made sure of safety with several weeks to spare, going on to finish a creditable ninth in the standings with 50 points from 38 games.
And this time around, Chievo seem to have continued where they had left off last term. The Yellow-Blues are really doing great as Rolando Maran’s side were off to a blistering start, beating Inter in the Serie A opener.
A narrow 0-1 defeat to Fiorentina immediately brought them back down to earth but after the international break, Chievo held Lazio to a 1-1 draw at home before recording their first win on the road – 2-1 at troubled Udinese.
Chievo’s ambitions go beyond a safe place in mid-table – coach Maran
A hard-fought, though deserved, 2-1 home win over Europa League hopefuls Sassuolo – last season’s surprise package in Serie A – confirmed the recent huge progress registered by the Verona-based side.
On match day six, two early goals shattered Chievo’s hopes of leaving Napoli’s San Paolo unscathed but last weekend they bounced back with a 2-0 win at league newcomers Pescara.
Given that Chievo already have 13 points from their first seven outings, the odds seem very good for them to avoid a bottom-three finish earlier than the season before.
Indeed, it would be a pity if Chievo were to take their foot off the pedal if they succeed in reaching the 40-point mark needed to ensure survival with several matches left.
In his comments to the media on Saturday, Maran did not mince his words and declared that Chievo’s ambitions go beyond a safe place in mid-table.
Sassuolo’s sixth-place finish in 2015-16 should serve as a source of inspiration for teams like Chievo who have a knack for proving the pundits wrong.
They earned the nickname of ‘Flying Donkeys’ back in 2000 as the fans of city rivals Verona used to say that it was more likely to see donkeys flying than Chievo in Serie A.
In their debut among Italy’s elite teams in 2001/02, Chievo, then led from the sidelines by Luigi Delneri (who went on to coach big clubs Porto, Roma, Sampdoria, Juventus and Udinese as from this week) played some of the most refreshing and entertaining football in the entire division en route to finishing fifth.
With Delneri as coach, Chievo finished seventh and ninth in the next two campaigns to establish themselves as a force to reckon with in Serie A.
In season 2004/05, with Mario Beretta in charge, Chievo were off to a strong start only to fade as the competition intensified. Eventually, they confirmed their Serie A status only towards the end of the season after former team captain Maurizio D’Angelo had replaced Beretta.
In 2005/06, Chievo were coached by Giuseppe Pillon.
The side went on to finish seventh and found themselves in the qualifying round of the UEFA Champions League after a number of clubs that had finished above them in the final standings were involved in the notorious scandal that rocked Italian football on the eve of the 2006 World Cup finals in Germany.
However, in the 2006/07 campaign Chievo experienced a total freefall as they were ousted from the Champions League (by Levski Sofia) and UEFA Cup (by Braga) before being relegated after six consecutive years among the elite.
All this happened notwithstanding Delneri’s headline-grabbing return in October 2006 as a replacement for Pillon.
But Chievo were back to the top flight after only one year in Serie B. They flirted with relegation on a few other occasions since their last promotion but last season they did a wonderful job to avoid flirting with the dreaded drop again.
Time will tell if this season, despite very few changes, Chievo’s encouraging start can last long as happened in the eventful years when Delneri had led the side to the Serie A for the first time in their history.