Dowie prepares to show his hand against Chievo
Friday, 1st Aug 2008 12:07

QPR manager Iain Dowie says he will select as close to his first choice starting eleven as possible on Saturday as the R's line up against Serie A side Chievo in their final summer friendly.

Queens Park Rangers v Chievo Verona
Loftus Road, London
Saturday August 2, Kick Off 3pm
Pre-Season Friendly

I suppose I better forewarn you – I’m grumpy. I spent the best part of an hour last night trying to buy two tickets for the Sheffield United away game, a match taking place about a mile and a half from my front gate, with no success. I phoned QPR, I stayed on hold for ten minutes, I ended up with Ticketmaster, they don’t take Maestro and said I should call QPR so I did that and ended up back with Ticketmaster. All the while the thick oiks employed in that Manchester call centre are telling me there’s only 150 tickets left for the match at Bramall Lane. They don’t take Maestro on the QPR website either. Irritating. Luckily one of our excellent box office employees sorted me out first thing this morning after responding to my e-mail.

On Saturday I went and reserved a new television for the start of the football season and was told to call back on Thursday when it was delivered. When I got to the shop yesterdat they’d sold it so I have to wait another week. And I was meant to play football last night but the pitch flooded in the first torrential downpour of the week. One of those days I guess.

It’s been an irritating summer all round really. Transfer targets missed, season ticket prices up, endless message board rumours coming to nothing, injuries to key players, friendly defeats and our own version of the never ending story with Kaspars Gorkss. Thankfully that did actually reach a conclusion on Thursday night – a bloody superb deal for the club in the end as I mused about earlier.

The summer of pissing me off comes to an end on Saturday at 3pm as QPR face Serie A new boys Chievo Verona in their only home friendly of the pre-season campaign. As a real fan of Italian football it’s a game I would dearly love to have come to see but alas £17 a ticket, with a £3.50 booking fee, and Ticketmaster’s refusal to accept my card allied with East Midlands Trains’ sudden, dramatic and scandalous ticket price rises means I’ll be staying at home and bugging people by text on Friday to agree to do me a match report.

Iain Dowie has made it clear that his starting eleven for this game will probably be the team that starts the Barnsley game so the line ups will be interesting, as will QPR’s performance after two defeats in Scotland without scoring.

Five minutes on Chievo
Chievo are the second team in Verona, but in recent years they’ve overtaken their traditionally more successful local rivals Hellas and spent time in Serie A for the first time in their history.

To chart Chievo’s progress through the Italian leagues it might be worthwhile just explaining how the complicated pyramid system works once you go below Serie A. Obviously Serie B is fairly self explanatory but Serie C is divided into five divisions across two levels. The first level below Serie B, effectively our League One, is Serie C1 which is split into two divisions north and south. The next level below that, our League Two, is Serie C2 which is split into three different leagues of twenty teams. Then below that is Serie D and it keeps dividing into smaller and smaller regions the lower you get into the non-league.

Chievo played local league football from their inception in 1929 until promotion into Serie D in 1974. The club was originally called Paluani Chievo after the cake making company that owned them and their dramatic Wimbledon-like ascendancy through the Italian leagues began when Luigi Campedelli became chairman as part of his involvement with Paluani. They made Serie C2 In 1986 and moved into Hellas Verona’s Stadio Marcantonio Bentegodi as a result. Three years later they were promoted again to Serie C1.

Campedelli died of a heart attack in 1992 but his 23 year old son took over and was the chairman when the club defied the odds to win promotion into Serie B and consequently face their first ever derby match with local rivals Hellas. Fans of the more senior team in Verona have something of a reputation in Italy for racist, bigoted attitudes. Chievo’s rise to prominence has only worsened the image of Hellas because while the Chievo fans are well behaved and have supported many black players at the club Hellas fans are not and do not.

It’s well worth reading Tim Parks’ ‘A Season With Verona’ for an in depth look at Hellas and their controversial supporters. He’s an apologist for them of course as one himself but it’s a superb book, one of the best football novels around, and certainly worth a look. While sympathy for fans of Hellas Verona isn’t a normal state of mind it must have been hard to see the local village side over take them in to Serie A and become the darling of the Italian media at the same time – a media that crucifies Hellas whenever it can.

In 2000/01 Chievo won their first ever promotion to Serie A under coach Luigi Del Neri. They took Seria A by storm as well, topping the table for six weeks, and earned the affectionate nickname “the flying donkeys” as a result. They finished fifth in the end, an astonishing achievement, and qualified for Europe although they were beaten in the first round of the UEFA Cup by Red Star Belgrade. Ironically Red Star were also the first ever opposition in a European game for Hellas Verona back in 1983 although on that occasion the Italian side won.

If you can imagine Rushden and Diamonds continuing their ascent through the leagues instead of falling apart as they did in League One, and them making the Premiership and finishing fifth in their first season – that’s the sort of rise to prominence we’re talking about here.

Despite their initial success, and consolidation in 2002/03 when they finished seventh and the season after when they were ninth, Chievo started to find it increasingly difficult to stay in Serie A after the departure of influential coach Del Neri. Mario Beretta moved from Ternana to replace him but after a god start that saw them third in the opening weeks they dropped through the league and were in the relegation positions with three games to play when Beretta was sacked. Former player Maurizio D’Angelo replaced him and they won two of their last three matches to stay up.

The club enjoyed a resurgence under former Treviso coach Giuseppe Pillon and finished seventh in 2005/06 which, because of the points deductions and punishments of numerous teams ahead of them , meant Champions League football for the first time the following season. Defeats against Sofa in the Champions League qualifying round and then Portuguese side Braga in the UEFA Cup set the tone and although Pillon was fired midway through the season not even the return to Del Neri was enough to save them from a final day relegation following a defeat against Catania.

Chievo won promotion back to the big league last season as Serie B champions at the first time of asking so will start the coming season as part of Italy’s elite once more.

Who to watch out for
Following their relegation from Serie A in 2006/07 the Chievo team broke up with a number of players and manager Del Neri leaving the club. Giuseppe Iachini was charged with the task of rebuilding the side and he did a fantastic job, winning Serie B at the first attempt and returning the club to the top flight. Midfielder Simone Bentivoglio was a key part of that side – the23 year old has Italian Under 21 and 20 caps to his name and started his career with Juventus but actually made his debut in senior football on loan at Modena and Mantova. Chievo took up a co-ownership arrangement, very common in Italian football, with Juventus and moved to sign him completely during their rebuilding operation last summer.

There’s a strong Brazilian influence on this new look Chievo side with three players from South America ready to be called on – Luciano, Cesar and Diego Farias. Winger Luciano certainly has a chequered history behind him having originally arrived in Italy know as Eriberto. ‘Eriberto’ started his career in his homeland with Palmeiras but used a fake passport to gain entry to Italy and sign for Serie A outfit Bologna in 1998. He signed for Chievo in 2000 but two years late his crime came to light and he was banned for six months and fined – when he returned to action he did so under his actual name Luciano.

His countryman Cesar will line up at the back for Chievo next season after they won a blind auction to take over whole ownership of the play from his previous club and co-owner Catania (honestly, you thought the Kaspars Gorkss deal was complicated). Cesar played for four years with first Chievo and then Catania in Serie A and will play top flight football in Verona again next season.

Up front look out for Erijon Bogdani, and Albanian international striker who has this week been linked with a move to Ipswich Town. He was signed by Chievo in January 2007 but his five goals before the end of the season couldn’t save them from relegation, at which point he was loaned out to Livorno for the whole season but again he found himself relegated at the end of the season. He also played for Luigi De Canio at Siena. A rarity because he has played for both Verona clubs, he scored 17 goals in 44 appearances for Hellas in 2004/05. He has eight goals in 44 appearances for his national team.

Captain Sergio Pellissier has scored 28 times for Cheivo in 119 apearances since 2000.

Team News
Iain Dowie has made no secret of the fact that he ill pick as near as possible to his first choice starting eleven in this match. With the results of Matt Connolly’s scan not yet in but the prognosis not very optimistic it seems he’s going to miss out and with Damion Stewart suspended for the opening match the defence pretty much picks itself. Ramage, Gorkss, Hall and Delaney will start in front of Cerny or Camp – I’d prefer the latter but it could well be the former. The midfield is a little more difficult to call – especially as Buzsaky, Rowlands and Vine are all ruled out of the opening matches. Ledesma has featured heavily in pre-season as has Mahon and they will both start I think. It’s between Alberti against his former club and Ephraim for the other wide spot and probably Leigertwood or Walton for the central role with Legs likely to win through. Partnering him with Mahon has been a disaster in the past so maybe Dowie will consider something else – Alberti or Ledesma in the middle with Ephraim wide perhaps. Up front take two from Blackstock, Agyemang and Di Carmine and with the latter carrying a knock and not featuring at all in Scotland it’s likely to be the two that were here last season. The trio have one goal between them in pre-season so far.

Injury List

Prediction
Chievo won the league at the equivalent level to us last season so are certainly not going to be mugs. With Gorkss now in the defence a clean sheet would be nice and a win is needed after a poor week in Scotland results wise. The Italian season starts nearly a month later than our own so Chievo are earlier in their preparation and it’s often the case that foreign teams don’t quite turn it on when travelling abroad for pre-season games so hopefully we’ll nick it. Goals are clearly going to be our issue while Buzsaky and Vine are out though.
QPR 1 Chievo 0