‘A massacre’: Shock & shame after Italian league game ends in 20-0 scoreline (VIDEO)
There has been shock and dismay after Italian football team Pro Piacenza suffered the humiliation of a 20-0 defeat to Cuneo in the country’s third-tier Serie C, after taking to the pitch with just seven players.
Pro Piacenza, known as the Rossoneri, have a heritage stretching back 100 years but endured what was surely one of the most chastening days in their history in the rout at Cuneo.
Amid a backdrop of financial woes which saw the normal playing squad and coaching staff refuse to make the trip over wage disputes, they were forced to scrape together a team of youth players and even a 39-year-old physio to meet the minimum requirement of seven players.
Sempre più assurdo quanto accade in #LegaPro... ecco come la #ProPiacenza, oggi, affronterà il #Cuneo.P.S. Allenatore: vedi capitano (classe 2000)... pic.twitter.com/4a4gbaFkwb
— Matteo Migliori (@MatteMiglio10) February 17, 2019
The club had already forfeited three previous games this season, and feared expulsion from the league if they had been forced to miss another game.
They were duly hammered by the ruthless home team, who amassed a 16-0 nil lead by half-time.
Pro Piacenza were later reinforced by an eighth player, although an injury ironically deprived them of their physio-turned player, who left the field as they conceded four more second-half goals to slump to the 20-0 loss.
Cuneo’s Hicham Kanis finished with six goals while Edoardo Defendi bagged five.
After the game, Cuneo captain Fabiano Santacroce condemned the farcical scenes as a “mockery.”
“Today was a mockery of a match. There were kids, staff members... maybe a physio. This is the result,” Santacroce told RMC Sport, the Independent reported.
“As captain, before the match, I spoke with the guys and said to them not to mock the opposition. But they made us play in a game in these conditions and we played it, simply doing what we had to.
“To be honest after half an hour I didn’t feel like taking part any more, it was a massacre.”
Also on rt.com Boateng burgled: Barcelona star 'robbed of up to $450K worth of cash & jewelry' in matchday raidThe Italian press has also condemned the game, with La Gazzetta dello Sport labelling it a “theatre of the absurd” and “shameful.”
And despite the valiant efforts by those who did turn out for Pro Piacenza, who were rock bottom of the league, it was later reported that they had been expelled from the Serie C after an announcement by the Lega Pro.
