Pisa Sporting Club, commonly referred to as Pisa, is an
Italian football
Football ( it, calcio ) is the most popular sport in Italy. The Italy national football team is considered to be one of the best national teams in the world. They have won the FIFA World Cup four times (1934, 1938, 1982, 2006), trailing only Bra ...
club based in
Pisa
Pisa ( , or ) is a city and ''comune'' in Tuscany, central Italy, straddling the Arno just before it empties into the Ligurian Sea. It is the capital city of the Province of Pisa. Although Pisa is known worldwide for its leaning tower, the cit ...
, Tuscany. The team currently plays in Serie B.
The club was founded in 1909 as Pisa Sporting Club and refounded in 1994 as Pisa Calcio (and registered in ''Eccellenza'', the regional football division in Italy), after the cancellation of the former because of economical troubles. It was excluded again from Italian football in 2009, after the property failed to collect enough money to pay off the club's debts. In summer 2009 it was refounded with the denomination A.C. Pisa 1909.
Pisa won two
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 ...
Romeo Anconetani
Romeo Montague () is the male protagonist of William Shakespeare's tragedy ''Romeo and Juliet''. The son of Lord Montague and his wife, Lady Montague, he secretly loves and marries Juliet, a member of the rival House of Capulet, through a priest ...
, the chairman who brought and led the club in Serie A during the 1980s. In 2016, Giuseppe Corrado bought the club and planned the new Pisa stadium. In January 2021, billionaire
Alexander Knaster
Alexander Knaster (born 19 February 1959) is a British businessman. A billionaire, he is founder of Pamplona Capital Management.
Biography
Knaster was born in Moscow in 1959 to a Jewish family of academics.Serie B in 1965, Pisa took three years to reach Serie A for the first time. Despite a brave effort, Pisa was relegated on the final day of the 1968–69 season.
Spending much of the 1970s in Serie C, Pisa returned to Serie B in 1979 (by which time the club had come under the presidency of the much-loved
Romeo Anconetani
Romeo Montague () is the male protagonist of William Shakespeare's tragedy ''Romeo and Juliet''. The son of Lord Montague and his wife, Lady Montague, he secretly loves and marries Juliet, a member of the rival House of Capulet, through a priest ...
) and were promoted to Serie A in 1982, embarking on a period of six out of nine seasons in Serie A. With Danish international Klaus Berggreen among their stars, Pisa managed a credible 11th place in the 1982–83 Serie A with 27 points and 27 goals scored and conceded in 30 games. The following season brought relegation (during which they recorded just 3 wins and 16 draws) with 15,000 fans travelling to Milan for the fateful penultimate game.
Promotion followed in 1985, and the team seemed capable of staying up until losing their last three games. The cycle was repeated in 1987, only for a side containing players like Dunga and Paul Elliott to stay up. The last promotion to Serie A was achieved in 1990, and with the talents of players like
Maurizio Neri
Maurizio Neri (born 21 March 1965 in Rimini) is an Italian professional football coach and a former player who played as a striker.
Currently, he is the head coach of Real Rimini.
Honours
;Napoli
* UEFA Cup
A cup is an open-top used to ...
, Michele Padovano and Lamberto Piovanelli up front and Diego Simeone, Henrik Larsen and Aldo Dolcetti in midfield, the side started well and was briefly atop the standings, only to suffer another relegation.
Relegation brought considerable financial strains to the club, and by 1994 they had lost a relegation play-off and were condemned to
Serie C1
Lega Pro Prima Divisione was the third highest football (soccer), football league in Italy. It consisted of 33 teams, divided geographically into two divisions of 16 and 17 teams for group A and B respectively. Until 2008 it was known as Serie C1 ...
.
Pisa Calcio
Bankruptcy saw Pisa reformed in Eccellenza, only to return to
Serie C2
Lega Pro Seconda Divisione was the fourth highest football league in Italy, the lowest with a professional status. Usually it consisted of 36 teams, but in the 2011–12 season, there were 41 teams divided geographically into two divisions of 2 ...
in 1996 and C1 in 1999. Pisa have since worked towards attaining Serie B status, which was achieved in 2007. Their crowds have been among the better in Italy's lower divisions owing to the dedication of their fans.
In May 2002 Maurizio Mian's "Gunther Reform Trust" became the owner of Pisa, installing wealthy celebrity German Shepherd dog Gunther IV as honorary president. In the
2002–03 Serie C1
The 2002–03 Serie C1 was the twenty-fifth edition of Serie C1, the third highest league in the Italian football league system.
Serie C1/A League table
Play-off Semifinal
, -
, style="background:#eee" colspan=4 ,
, -
Final
Play-ou ...
season, Pisa reached the play-off final but were defeated in extra-time by
UC AlbinoLeffe
Unione Calcio AlbinoLeffe is an Italian association football club representing Albino and Leffe, two small towns located in Val Seriana, Lombardy. The club played in Serie B for nine consecutive years and narrowly missed promotion in Serie A at ...
. President Gunther would attend matches at Arena Garibaldi and
bark
Bark may refer to:
* Bark (botany), an outer layer of a woody plant such as a tree or stick
* Bark (sound), a vocalization of some animals (which is commonly the dog)
Places
* Bark, Germany
* Bark, Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship, Poland
Arts, ...
Livorno
Livorno () is a port city on the Ligurian Sea on the western coast of Tuscany, Italy. It is the capital of the Province of Livorno, having a population of 158,493 residents in December 2017. It is traditionally known in English as Leghorn (pronou ...
ultras unfurled a banner bearing the legend: "Poisoned meatballs for Gunther". After two further seasons ended in mid-table finishes, Mian sold Pisa in 2005.
In 2005–06, the team, initially thought to be a protagonist for the promotion, were in continuous struggles, and avoided relegation after playoffs in two dramatic regional derbies against Massese. The 2006–07 season, with new boss Piero Braglia, brought Pisa back to fight for a promotion spot: the ''nerazzurri'' ended the regular season in third place, and eventually won the promotion playoffs by defeating Venezia in the semi-finals and
Monza
Monza (, ; lmo, label=Lombard language, Lombard, Monça, locally ; lat, Modoetia) is a city and ''comune'' on the River Lambro, a tributary of the Po River, Po in the Lombardy region of Italy, about north-northeast of Milan. It is the capit ...
in the finals.
For the
2007–08 Serie B
The 2007–08 Serie B regular season is the seventy-sixth since its establishment. It started on August 25, 2007, and ended with the promotion playoff final on June 15, 2008.
At the end of the year, three teams were promoted to Serie A, the fir ...
campaign, the first in 13 years,
Gian Piero Ventura
Gian Piero Ventura (; born 14 January 1948) is an Italian football manager.
His playing career as a midfielder was spent in the lower leagues, having not made the grade at Sampdoria, where he began his coaching career with the youth team in 1 ...
was named to replace Braglia at the helm of the ''nerazzurri''. Despite initial predictions of a mid-low table place, Pisa's impressive performances brought the team to fight for a direct promotion spot, also thanks to a forward line composed by
Alessio Cerci
Alessio Cerci (; born 23 July 1987) is an Italian professional footballer who plays as a winger.
Cerci started his professional football career at Roma, playing four times for the first team before serving periods on loan at Brescia, Pisa an ...
,
José Ignacio Castillo
José Ignacio Castillo Álvarez (born 11 April 1975) is a former professional footballer who played as a striker.
Career
Serie D
A prolific striker, nicknamed ''Nacho'', he moved in Italy in 2001 to join Serie D club Brindisi, offering a m ...
and
Vitali Kutuzov
Vitali Vladimirovich Kutuzov ( be, Віталь Уладзіміравіч Кутузаў; born 20 March 1980) is a Belarusian former professional footballer who played as a forward.
Club career
Kutuzov was born in Pinsk. He signed with BAT ...
which proved to be among the finest in the league. The club ended the regular season in sixth place, therefore achieving a spot to the promotion playoffs, where Pisa was later defeated by
Lecce
Lecce ( ); el, label=Griko, Luppìu, script=Latn; la, Lupiae; grc, Λουπίαι, translit=Loupíai), group=pron is a historic city of 95,766 inhabitants (2015) in southern Italy. It is the capital of the province of Lecce, the province ...
.
In 2008–09, the club was acquired by Rome entrepreneur
Luca Pomponi
The last universal common ancestor (LUCA) is the most recent population from which all organisms now living on Earth share common descent—the most recent common ancestor of all current life on Earth. This includes all cellular organisms; th ...
, who initially failed into appointing Alessandro Costacurta as new head coach, thus confirming Ventura as ''nerazzurri'' boss. The club, which was weakened by the departures of Cerci, Castillo, Kutuzov and several other players, did not manage to repeat its performances, with Ventura being ultimately sacked in March 2009, with the club in mid-table place. The appointment of
Bruno Giordano
Bruno Giordano (; born 13 August 1956) is an Italian football manager and former player, who was deployed as a forward and is mostly remembered for winning the title of Serie A capocannoniere (top goalscorer) achieved with Lazio as well as for ...
, which was made to improve the team results, however proved to be disappointing in terms of results, as Pisa slowly lost positions in the table, and shockingly got directly relegated in the final game of the season due to an injury-time home defeat to Brescia which left the Tuscans in 18th place. The unexpected relegation also unveiled a number of massive financial issues which prevented the club from registering in the Lega Pro Prima Divisione, and in July 2009 the club was excluded by the Italian Football Federation for the second time in its history.
A.C. Pisa 1909
Pisa has been refounded with the denomination of A.C. Pisa 1909 S.S.D. (in which S.S.D. is a legal suffix required by FIGC) to start again from Serie D under new ownership. At the end of the season Pisa won Group D ( it, Girone D) of Serie D and was promoted to
Lega Pro Seconda Divisione
Lega Pro Seconda Divisione was the fourth highest football league in Italy, the lowest with a professional status. Usually it consisted of 36 teams, but in the 2011–12 season, there were 41 teams divided geographically into two divisions of 2 ...
for the 2010–11 season.
The team was then admitted to Lega Pro Prima Divisione for the 2010–11 season to fill vacancies created by a row of club exclusions in second and third tier of Italian football league system. Thus the S.S.D. legal suffix was drop and replaced by S.r.l.
On 12 June 2016 Pisa gained promotion to Serie B after seven years by defeating Maceratese (3–1),
Pordenone
Pordenone (; Venetian and fur, Pordenon) is the main ''comune'' of Pordenone province of northeast Italy in the Friuli Venezia Giulia region.
The name comes from Latin ''Portus Naonis'', meaning 'port on the Noncello (Latin ''Naon'') River'.
...
(3–0 on aggregate) and
Foggia
Foggia (, , ; nap, label= Foggiano, Fògge ) is a city and former ''comune'' of Apulia, in Southern Italy, capital of the province of Foggia. In 2013, its population was 153,143. Foggia is the main city of a plain called Tavoliere, also known ...
in the two-legged play-off final (5–3 on aggregate), however, the club was relegated to Serie C the following season after finishing second-last.
Pisa Sporting Club
Having moved back to Serie B in 2019, the club changed back its name to Pisa Sporting Club in the summer of 2021.
Current squad
Other players under contract
Out on loan
Coaching staff
Notable former players
Honours
*
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 ...
Serie C2
Lega Pro Seconda Divisione was the fourth highest football league in Italy, the lowest with a professional status. Usually it consisted of 36 teams, but in the 2011–12 season, there were 41 teams divided geographically into two divisions of 2 ...