In the summer of 1996, in a tiny, impoverished town deep in the remote heart of southern Italy, a sporting miracle took place. The footballers of Castel di Sangro – population 5,000 – won promotion to Serie B, the division directly below the most glamorous league in world football. In little more than a decade, the team had risen from the lowest depths of regional amateur football to within touching distance of Baggio and Batistuta.
Feeling something of a football curio himself – an American who understood and loved the game – Joe McGinniss followed their fortunes throughout their first remarkable season in the big time. Populated by characters only the passionate, frenetic, absurd world of sport can produce, ‘The Miracle of Castel di Sangro’, dramatically reveals football’s limitless potential for magic, wonder and improbable romance.
Feeling something of a football curio himself – an American who understood and loved the game – Joe McGinniss followed their fortunes throughout their first remarkable season in the big time. Populated by characters only the passionate, frenetic, absurd world of sport can produce, ‘The Miracle of Castel di Sangro’, dramatically reveals football’s limitless potential for magic, wonder and improbable romance.
