After a ninth, a sixth place and a lost Serie B play-off semi-final, Palermo this summer dreamed of going up another step and fully fighting for direct promotion in order to best crown their first three-year period at the helm. City Football Group, the holding company owned by the Sheikh Mansur bin Zayd Al Nahyan which controls, among others, Manchester City and New York City. Moreover, with such a rich and ambitious ownership behind it, the step forward, after two years of adjustment following the rebirth from the ashes of bankruptcy and the climb from Serie D to the second series, seemed natural in the growth path of the Rosanero team.
After all, the summer had brought players of experience and value to Sicily to further enrich an already strong squad and allow the new coach Alessio Dionisi to have even more alternatives in all roles. But a bit of bad luck – see the injuries of Alfred Gomis and Alexis Blin -, a bit of the adaptation difficulties of the new players – especially that Jeremy Le Douaron who was the most expensive purchase on the Serie B market -, without forgetting the outbreak of the Brunori case, never completely resolved and buried under the ashes by a peace at the end of the summer which however is proving to be more harmful than anything else, have not allowed the team to find the continuity and results that everyone expected.
And so Palermo finds itself sailing on the brink of access to the play offs, but very far from the leading trio – made up of Sassuolo, Spezia and Pisa – who are now 12 points away. And although there is time to recover, things at the Rosanero house do not seem to give hope for the best with the protest from a part of the organized fans (the Ultras Curva Sud) which exploded yesterday with a harsh message addressed precisely to the owners who it read: “City Group: team without balls and incompetent managers. Your ‘programming’ offends our passion“.
The fear is that instead of following in the footsteps of Manchester City or Girona, Palermo can take the path taken by Lommel and Troyesteams still struggling to move up into their respective top divisions. An eventuality that everyone in Palermo hopes to avoid.