Sporting director has helped take the club from the third tier to Serie A, fuelled by shrewd signings, big dreams and a cosy canteen
In 2015 Parma were declared bankrupt and relegated to Serie D, the fourth tier of Italian football. A season later they were in Serie C but they still had a long way to go to climb back up to the top tier. So when Palermo’s sporting director, Daniele Faggiano, quit his position in Serie A to join Parma amid the rubble, it is little wonder eyebrows were raised. “The main factor was Parma’s history – this club deserved to be where they had always been,” says Faggiano. “I thought: Parma is Parma, in Europe and in the world. No one gave me an objective for this club because we deserve to be in Serie A.”
Two seasons later, Parma are dining at the top table again, sitting proudly in eighth place, four points above Milan, having survived relegation in their first season back in the top flight. Working in tandem with the head coach, Roberto D’Aversa, Faggiano has been one of the chief architects behind what is known as the “Parma Miracle”. They won an incredible three leagues in a row to return to Serie A, the first team in
Italy to complete this feat. So, how do you even begin to rebuild a club from the bottom up?