Next season, Serie C will welcome a new club to its ranks in the shape of Caldiero Terme. Big names such as Vicenza, Padova and Triestina will have to travel to the tiny Stadio Mario Berti, nestling in the Veneto countryside surrounded by vineyards, to take on a team which does not even have an Italian Wikipedia page, managed by a Verona binman.
Serie C is Italian football’s melting pot, the place where big clubs down on their luck rub shoulders with provincial sides at the top of their game. And the rise of Caldiero Terme, a club representing a town of barely 8,000 people on the outskirts of Verona, is a refreshingly heart-warming story of a team which has been building to this moment for two decades.
The town of Caldiero has a long history, dating back to Roman times when it was a spa town (hence the ‘Terme’ part of the football club’s name), a reputation which was enhanced when the area was part of the Venetian Republic. During the Napoleonic era the town’s position near a crossing point on the Adige river meant it was the site of four battles between the French and the then-ruling Austrians in the fight for control of northern Italy. The history of Caldiero football club began in 1934 when the club was founded but until the 1990s they had never even reached the fifth tier Eccellenza league.
Things began to change in 2004 when the Berti family, owners of a farming machinery company, took control. Berti Macchine Agricole has been based in Caldiero for even longer than the football team and specialises in equipment for vineyards, so it is fitting that the Stadio Mario Berti is surrounded by rows of vines. Back in 2004, the club’s home was little more than a public park in the middle of Caldiero but by 2008 they had moved to a purpose-built ground on the outskirts of the town. Named after then-president Mario Berti, it has a single stand with the seats spelling out Forza Caldiero in the club’s yellow and green colours and is not dissimilar to East Fife’s New Bayview, only with more vineyards. The complex also includes several training pitches, used by the many age-group teams, reflecting the importance placed on the local community.
The current chairman is Filippo Berti, great grandson of the company’s founder, who has shown patience in allowing the football club to grow steadily but surely from the amateur leagues into the semi-professional game and now, for the first time in their history, preparing to take on the professional ranks. The stricter ground requirements for Serie C will means that the first few games will be played 15 km down the road at the home of Virtus Verona, a club which Berti identifies as a role model for Caldiero’s future. Now Verona’s second team and where Caldiero’s new season will begin with a Coppa Italia tie, Virtus is a remarkable success story in itself, the Serie C minnows having been regulars in the third tier since 2013 under the guidance of manager and chairman Luigi Fresco, who has held both roles since 1982.
Another example of Berti’s patience is his loyalty to manage Cristian Soave, who has been at the helm since 2017. In those 7 years, he has guided the team to promotion to Serie D, the final of the Coppa Italia Dilettanti, the play-offs, and now the extraordinary achievement of winning their Serie D group. Soave shares his surname with the famous white wine produced in several towns around Verona, including Caldiero itself, but he works in a very different industry. Throughout his tenure at i Termali, he has combined his coaching role with working full-time as a binman in the city.
According to a recent interview, his alarm goes off at 3 every morning for a shift from 4 am until 10 am. After a rest and lunch at his mother’s, he is ready to lead training at 1pm before work then turns to preparation for the forthcoming fixtures. On top of all this, he is father to three children and had to cope with the tragic loss of his wife, Elisabetta, four years ago. He has said that he wants to keep his job as a binman but recognises that he may have to request a lead of absence given the greater demands of coaching at a professional level.
For British football fans, it can take a while to get used to the Italian practice of changing managers after promotions, an approach based on the idea that different coaches are suited to different challenges. However, Caldiero’s decision to confirm Soave for next season seems an obvious step given the deep bond between the two and the remarkable success in 2023/24.
At the start of last season, Caldiero were not one of the favourites for Serie D, Group B. Re-founded Piacenza were expected to dominate the division, as befitting a club of that size playing at this level. Other sides such as Desenzano, based on Lake Garda, had high ambitions too, best embodied by the signing of former Serie A striker Andrea Paloschi. The first round of fixtures did nothing to change those expectations, with wins for Piacenza and Desenzano, whilst Caldiero lost to Folgore Caratese. However, a win on matchday 2 kick-started a run of 7 wins and 3 draws in the next 10 games. That was ended with a defeat to Clivense, the Chievo phoenix club currently playing in San Martino Buonalbergo just 7 km away.
After hitting the top of the table at the midway point of the season, a run of 2 wins in 8 games through February and March left many expecting the fairytale finish to slip from their grasp. The turning point came with the visit of Piacenza, at which point Caldiero were in fourth place, 4 points behind the visitors. The 2-1 win was the first of six consecutive victories to close out the season, with promotion secured on the final day of the season at Villa Valle.
Caldiero’s leading scorer, for the sixth time in the last seven seasons, was Lorenzo Zerbato with 18 goals. Zerbato has been with the club since it was in the Eccellenza and has scored over 100 times in yellow and green, becoming a true Bandiera. His strike partner for much of the season was Rachid Arma, a Moroccan-Italian veteran of many clubs in Serie B and Serie C, including Torino, Triestina, and Vicenza. Now 35, Arma recently announced that he would not be staying with Caldiero for next season, leaving a significant gap to be filled for the gialloverdi. The watchword for the new season will be continuity, with 11 of the promotion-winning squad already retained for Serie C whilst new signings have been focussed on adding experience at that level and promising players from the lower levels of the pyramid. Nothing too flashy, nothing too revolutionary.
In a game where it always seems like money talks, the Miracolo di Caldiero Terme is a modern footballing fairytale. Filippo Berti says he is confident that they can be competitive but even if they are relegated at the first attempt the club’s foundations seem firm and as the saying goes “la prima volta non si scorda mai”, you never forget the first time.
If you are tempted by a visit to Caldiero for a Serie C match, it would make for an easy day trip from Verona, ideally combined with a Hellas Verona match at the Bentegodi. It is just a 14-minute, €3 train ride from Verona Porta Nuova, and then a 2 km walk up to the ground. For the first few rounds they will be ground-sharing at Virtus Verona in the east of the city, a 30-minute bus ride from the city centre.