Business, history, pride: Lecce enjoys the masterpiece

LECCE - He runs under the section of the away sector, hugging his boys one by one. President Saverio Sticchi Damiani is aware of having written the history of Lecce, who together with a club of fans, even before members, has demonstrated once again that you can win by combining sporting results with economic results. The model of the Giallorossi club is unique in all of Italy, which over time has gained more and more consensus, to the point of becoming an object of study. This salvation represents another step in a long-term project, which looks with ever greater confidence towards the future and which aims to put down ever more solid roots.

It hasn't been an easy year, especially in the last few months. From February onwards, the team has stalled, ending up sliding further and further down the rankings. But the club has always been close to the team-group, never failing to provide its support and backing. Giampaolo's words after the match against Lazio are emblematic: "I'm happy for the club and for the president. I wish every coach to have Sticchi Damiani as president, he is a personality from another dimension. He always has the right word, it's difficult to find someone like him in the world of football". Participating in Serie A for the fourth consecutive championship will allow Sticchi Damiani and his partners' club to progress further on the roadmap and to put another important growth piece in place. On the one hand, there is the sporting result, the third consecutive salvation, on the other, there is the economic result, represented by the balance sheets in order, and in the background, there is the growth of the infrastructure. The renovation of the "Via del Mare", which will be fully covered thanks to the funds of the Mediterranean Games, and the creation of the sports center owned in Martignano. In short, on the basis of these assumptions, one cannot help but look with confidence to the future at home in the Giallorossi.

Sticchi Damiani entrusted his first reactions to the salvation with a post on his social channels, relaunching the graphic coined by the club where the word "StoriA" stands out with all the protagonists of the salvation in the background. "An undertaking never achieved in 117 years of history - wrote the president -. Graziano is for you". The reference is to the memory of Graziano Fiorita, whose unbridgeable void gave Lecce one more reason to achieve the final objective. It is a salvation that bears the signature of Pantaleo Corvino, the head of the technical area, who together with the sports director Stefano Trinchera is one of the main architects of this provincial miracle. Although there is very little that is miraculous: the results obtained by Lecce, in fact, are the result of planning, of thoughtful, sometimes even risky choices. But this is the policy outlined by the club of via Costadura and it is the only way to try to play football at certain latitudes. In a south that is finding it increasingly difficult to assert itself in top-level football, Lecce is the southernmost dot on the peninsula in Serie A.

A further source of pride for the corporate team chaired by Sticchi Damiani. But returning to Corvino, the manager from Vernole has completed the work, surpassing himself. In his first cycle in yellow and red, at the beginning of the 2000s, the head of the technical area missed the appointment with the third consecutive salvation, but this time he managed to hit the target. In step with the first team, he also managed to establish himself with the Primavera, champion of Italy two years ago and now a permanent fixture in the Primavera 1 championship. This year will also go down in history as the year of the most important sale in the history of Lecce, that of Patrick Dorgu to Manchester United. The young Dane arrived for just 200 thousand euros and was resold for 30 million plus bonuses. Important resources for the club, which will be useful in the summer when it comes to setting up the team that will try to take further and further, towards new horizons and new objectives, always keeping their feet firmly on the ground, but without clipping their ambitions.