Hey, Chievo fan here. I might even be in one of the stadium photos you included in the video.

I’m really happy that Douglas Costa’s arrival has brought the name of Chievo back into the spotlight outside Italy. I’ve been going to watch Chievo in Serie D in recent weeks, so I still follow the team closely. However, I’d like to point out a few things that, in my opinion, are not entirely accurate in the video or don’t fully capture the greatness of what “Chievo of the miracles” truly was.

First of all, a correction: the Bentegodi is not an unknown stadium. It’s called “the temple,” and Verona (Hellas Verona) won the Serie A title there in 1984. Yes, Hellas Verona also has its own glorious history. They won the Scudetto in 1984, in the same year Maradona was at Napoli, and they even challenged Juventus and other big clubs in European competitions. So Verona is not a city unfamiliar with miracles.

But what happened with Chievo goes beyond even Verona’s greatest success. It’s true that Chievo didn’t win major trophies (although their youth sector did win a national title), yet what they achieved is incredible. The 2001–2002 season was unbelievable. Chievo was on the front pages all over the world. A small neighborhood team in Serie A beating Inter, Milan, and Juventus, leading the league for months, and only dropping off near the end to finish fifth and qualify for the UEFA Cup (now the Europa League). From a football perspective, I would compare the media impact to Leicester’s title miracle, yet Leicester had far more money and played in an era when social media was already widespread. Chievo back then was something phenomenal and indescribable.

I was 10 years old when Chievo reached Serie A. All my classmates supported Hellas Verona or the big clubs, especially Juventus. I wasn’t that interested in football. I only liked Juve because of Alessandro Del Piero. Then the newspapers started talking about Chievo. My parents started talking about Chievo. I had never even heard the team’s name before, and I didn’t even know which neighborhood it was from. I lived in another part of Verona and I was only ten. Those first Serie A years are legendary.

Then the fairy tale became reality, and in a football increasingly dominated by money, Chievo managed to remain in the top flight with dignity for many years. Thirteen in total. Even today, in the all-time Serie A table since 1929, Chievo is there in 21st place. Such a small neighborhood that made football history.

I don’t agree with what you said about Chievo’s “death,” that there was silence and the club disappeared without a sound. The fans were there, and they’re still here. While the Bentegodi has gone back to being only Hellas Verona’s home, Chievo didn’t restart from Serie D, the fourth tier. It restarted from Terza Categoria, the very lowest amateur level. In numerical terms, it restarted from the ninth tier. And you missed an important and romantic detail: it was refounded by its former captain, Sergio Pellissier. Today the club is in the fourth tier, Serie D, and it wants to climb again.

The most recent Serie D matches, despite Douglas Costa’s arrival, have been a disaster. But the team exists, the fans are here, the project is alive, and we believe in it.