A rising tide lifts all boats

La satgione e lunga e dura. The season is long and hard. Although the statement is specific to one, this is an expression that can be said of any season and league in football. We have all read about, followed, or possibly even been a part of an amazing season in sports. When it is all said and done, you look and think back to how it all began, perhaps ten months earlier, did you know this is where it would have ended up? In the case of The Miracle of Castel Di Sangro, it is the mantra for the 1996/97 season of Castel Di Sangro and their ascension into Italy's Serie B. In just over one decade, this team rose from the very lowest division in the country, in a town of just 5,000 people, to gain promotion into the division below Serie A, which at that time was arguably the top league in the world.

I carry a note in my wallet that has a list of books I add onto whenever I come across mention of one that sounds like I need to read. It's gotten pretty long and for the most part they aren't in stock at Chapters or Indigo, or even if they were I probably would keep looking in a smaller shop until I found it there. One that I had on the list for a long time was The Miracle of Castel Di Sangro. I don't even remember when I would have jotted this down, possibly a few years back and the only way I would have probably found it was through my #1 way of choosing new books - "people who read this book also read ..." on amazon.com.

Pretty much every football book I've read recently has been with the purpose, or result, of gaining historical knowledge of a time, league or team that I knew nothing about or missed out on. I really never cared much for Serie A, always focusing on the Premier League and La Liga. But like the last book I read, Brilliant Orange, after getting through this one, my appreciation for the game, specifically this league, has grown immensely - or possibly where it should have been all along.


The Miracle of Castel Di Sangro is an account of this 96/97 season as seen through the eyes of the American writer, Joe McGinness. Instead of writing a book on O.J. Simpson (for a million dollars), he decided that he would spend the next nine months in the Abruzzo following this team's first season, their miracle season, in Serie B. McGinness at this point is what some would call a nOOb - having only started following the sport during the '94 World Cup. However, he genuinely becomes obsessed and passionate about football and after the World Cup contacts fellow American Alexi Lawless to stay in Italy and get his first taste of a domestic football league. As some of us know, nothing compares to seeing a live football match, and certainly after watching a game at the San Siro, that would be it.

Only a year later, through reading La Gazettea dello Sport, he finds out about this team that against all odds, against all logic, has climbed up to Serie B in the span of just over ten years. Their promotion was dubbed "Di Miracolo in Miracolo!" - miracle of miracles. Castel Di Sangro would be playing one step down from the top of Italian football - against teams who only last season were IN Serie A! McGinness had to be there to witness this season, and tell the story. We see him mixing his first hand account with the history of the team, the history of the owners and the history of the players. Since he is relatively new to the sport, and possibly because the target audience for the book might have been American, he takes care to explain thoroughly the rules, and situations as they apply to the team and to events that play out during each game he follows. So it ends up not just being a linear "A to B", September to June journey, but an overall trek that has dozens of side stories, seguays and tangents that make up one of the most insane, bizarre seasons you'll hear about ... or very possibly this could have been just another year in Italian football.

I've written a lot but not given much away as to details and that is the way it should be. Maybe you know this story already, but if you don't this is worth a read regardless of the fact it's about a little town's season in the second division. This is a book that you should check out for yourself, and despite it being ten years old (yeah yeah late pass) it holds up as one of the best. It's these kind of reads that actually find ways to encapsulate and remind you what the game is all about (passion!), so you can take a step back from $80 million dollar signings and the latest "he said he said" gossip books. If anything it's worth it to follow these players for a season then try to find them on wikipedia to see how their careers panned out.

One thing that I'm sure we can all relate to as TFC fans, or Team Canada fans (not Leafs fans though) that The Miracle of Castel Di Sangro epitomizes, is La Potenza della Speranza - The power of hope. Definitely something worth remembering in a city where we so easily give up on our team, or players. La satgione e lunga e dura, so make sure you are there at the end to witness something amazing.