The Serie B playoff show

The playoffs of the Serie B 2023/24 have reached the final act, with the last spot for promotion - after the ones secured in the regular season by Parma and Como - up for grabs between the top seeded teams on the bracket, Venezia and Cremonese. The two teams will face each other on Sunday at the Penzo stadium for the return match (in case of a tie at 120’, Venezia will be promoted due to their higher placement in the league) in a game where we can expect a captivating crowd. After the over 5,000 grigiorossi season ticket holders exercised their right of first refusal to purchase tickets and the remaining tickets were sold out in the first hours of general sale, setting a new season record at the Zini stadium, the Venetian fans will not be any less as it has already been announced that the Penzo stadium is sold out.

What has certainly not been lacking in these weeks is the involvement of the fans. The 32,000 at the Barbera (Palermo) in the semifinal, the last of many gatherings of rosanero fans in this historic phase of rebirth; or the roar of a packed Ceravolo (Catanzaro), after Donnarumma's goal in the 96th minute that kept the Calabrian team (in the playoffs as newly promoted) alive in the playoff against Brescia; or, expanding the discussion to the fight for survival and therefore the playout between Bari and Ternana, the match at the San Nicola stadium played in front of 35,000 fans. In short, the context of the Serie B "post-season" has truly been, as they say, a great advertisement for Italian football, in line with the positive trend of the post-pandemic seasons, in which the return to stadiums has exceeded expectations. In the case of the second division league, a big contribution has come from the presence of big cities, "passionate" fan bases or historic clubs like Sampdoria (first in average attendance this season, 22,641 per match), Palermo (22,635), Bari and Parma; as was the case last season, for example, with Genoa and Cagliari, or in the past with Verona, Bologna and Turin, up to the more unique and long-standing cases of Napoli and Juventus.

Venezia arrives at the final with the slight advantage in the predictions, after defeating Palermo in both the first and second leg, and enjoying the home field advantage. For the lagunari, in the background of the next 90 minutes, there is the controversial situation of the American ownership, with imminent deadlines and FIFA's suspension on the transfer market, waiting to see how things will turn out with Duncan Niederauer and how the club's ownership structure will change; and, above all, if there will be the necessary conditions - the financial guarantees required by the federation - for the club to be registered for the next season. Despite all this, Vanoli's team, led by Pohjanpalo's 22 goals, has been among the top two or three throughout the season and saw their direct promotion hopes slip away only in late spring. On Sunday evening, the orange and black team will try to repeat the feat of the 2021 playoffs, in which they secured promotion with a goal from Bocalon in the injury minutes against Cittadella. However, Cremonese, as seen in their match against Catanzaro, is a worthy opponent and aims to return to Serie A in their first attempt, after their promotion in 2022 and immediate relegation. The stage for the grigiorossi's dream, the historic Zini stadium, has recently become the property of the club (the fifth among the top two Italian leagues and the second in Lombardy, after Atalanta), confirming the ambitions of Giovanni Arvedi, a key figure in one of the wealthiest ownerships in Italian football.

Regardless of who completes the trio between Venezia and Cremonese, the 2024/25 Serie A is destined to welcome interesting projects that have ambitious goals for their future. First and foremost, Parma (another American ownership, linked to the Krause Group), which for months now has seemed like a top-tier team in every aspect; and of course, Como, owned by the Hartono brothers (Indonesia), who dream of "turning the club into the Manchester United of Italy". They will join the many foreign ownerships that have arrived in Serie A in recent years, from the Milan teams to the "cousins" (increasingly less provincial) from Bergamo, but also Rome, Fiorentina, Bologna and Genoa. Now, there is only one invitation left to join the dance. And for us viewers, a fun competition to win it, of which only the grand finale remains to be discovered.