Fernando Veneranda (23 May 1941 – 1 March 2007 in

Porto San Giorgio Porto San Giorgio is a ''comune'' (town or municipality) in the Province of Fermo, in the Marche region of Italy. It has approximately 15,700 inhabitants (2021) and it is located on the coast of the Adriatic Sea. History Already famous at the tim ...

) was an Italian

football (soccer) Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

player and manager.

Playing career

Veneranda, a forward, started his professional career for

Fiorentina ACF Fiorentina, commonly referred to as Fiorentina (), is an Italian professional football club based in Florence, Tuscany, Italy. The original team was founded by a merger in August 1926, while the actual club was refounded in August 2002 fo ...

, where he played from 1960 to 1963. He never played a single

Serie A The Serie A (), also called Serie A TIM for national sponsorship with TIM, is a professional league competition for football clubs located at the top of the Italian football league system and the winner is awarded the Scudetto and the Coppa ...

match, but appeared in a

Cup Winners' Cup The UEFA Cup Winners' Cup was a European football club competition contested annually by the winners of domestic cup competitions. The cup was, chronologically, the second seasonal inter-European club competition organised by UEFA. The tournam ...

match, as well as in the

Coppa Italia The ("Italy Cup") is an annual knockout cup competition in Italian football organized by the FIGC until the 2009–10 season and the Lega Serie A ever since. History The beginning of the tournament was turbulent, due to the complexity of ...

and

Mitropa Cup The Mitropa Cup, officially called the La Coupe de l'Europe Centrale or Central European Cup, was one of the first international major European football cups for club sides. It was conducted among the successor states of the former Austria-Hungar ...

. He owns the record of being the Fiorentina players with the highest number of appearances without having ever played a league match. He then played for a number of

, B and C clubs. Veneranda ended his playing career in 1973 for

Matera Matera (, ; Materano: ) is a city in the region of Basilicata, in Southern Italy. As the capital of the province of Matera, its original settlement lies in two canyons carved by the Gravina River. This area, the Sassi di Matera, is a comple ...

, and soon became manager of the same club.

Managing career

After his time at Matera, Veneranda moved to

Campobasso Campobasso (, ; nap, label= Campobassan, Cambuàsce ) is a city and ''comune'' in southern Italy, the capital of the region of Molise and of the province of Campobasso. It is located in the high basin of the Biferno river, surrounded by Sann ...

Marsala Marsala (, local ; la, Lilybaeum) is an Italian town located in the Province of Trapani in the westernmost part of Sicily. Marsala is the most populated town in its province and the fifth in Sicily. The town is famous for the docking of Gius ...

, and to

Palermo Palermo ( , ; scn, Palermu , locally also or ) is a city in southern Italy, the capital (political), capital of both the autonomous area, autonomous region of Sicily and the Metropolitan City of Palermo, the city's surrounding metropolitan ...

, a former playing club of his, at the end of the 1976/1977 season. He is best remembered among Palermo fans for having led the

Serie B The Serie B (), currently named Serie Balkrishna Industries, BKT for sponsorship reasons, is the second-highest division in the Italian football league system after the Serie A. It has been operating for over ninety years since the 1929–30 ...

club to its second

final in history, then lost 2–1 to giants

Juventus Juventus Football Club (from la, iuventūs, 'youth'; ), colloquially known as Juve (), is a professional Association football, football club based in Turin, Piedmont, Italy, that competes in the Serie A, the top tier of the Italian football leagu ...

. Despite this, Veneranda coached only a single

team in his whole career,

Avellino Avellino () is a town and ''comune'', capital of the province of Avellino in the Campania region of southern Italy. It is situated in a plain surrounded by mountains east of Naples and is an important hub on the road from Salerno to Benevento. ...

; he was called to coach the ''biancoverdi'' in October 1982 and obtained a good ninth place for the small club; he was fired after the tenth matchday of the next season. Veneranda retired from football in 1992, after he relegated to

Serie C The Serie C () is the third-highest division in the Italian football league system after the Serie B and Serie A. The Lega Italiana Calcio Professionistico (Lega Pro) is the governing body that runs the Serie C. The unification of the Lega Pro ...

1 with

Messina Messina (, also , ) is a harbour city and the capital of the Italian Metropolitan City of Messina. It is the third largest city on the island of Sicily, and the 13th largest city in Italy, with a population of more than 219,000 inhabitants in ...

. Veneranda died on 1 March 2007, aged 65, in his native city of

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Veneranda, Fernando 1941 births 2007 deaths Sportspeople from the Province of Fermo Italian footballers Italian football managers Men's association football forwards Serie A players Serie B players Serie C players ACF Fiorentina players A.C. Prato players Palermo F.C. players Brescia Calcio players Genoa C.F.C. players Potenza S.C. players F.C. Matera players Palermo F.C. managers Hellas Verona F.C. managers Calcio Foggia 1920 managers U.S. Avellino 1912 managers Cagliari Calcio managers U.S. Triestina Calcio 1918 managers A.C.R. Messina managers Footballers from Marche