Benevento promoted to Serie A after play-off final victory

Benevento won promotion to the Italian top flight for the first time in their history after beating Carpi 1-0 in the second leg of the Serie B play-off final.

After a goalless first leg in Carpi, George Puscas’ goal in the 33rd-minute of Thursday’s return meeting settled the contest in Benevento’s favour.

The Campania-based club, who had never even played in Serie B before this season, have now won back-to-back promotions and join SPAL and Hellas Verona in going up.
Benevento head coach Marco Baroni praised his players for their efforts across an unbeaten play-off campaign, which followed a fifth-placed finish in the league.

Speaking to Italian news agency Ansa, he said: „There is an incredible joy and we deserve it. It is a promotion which we wanted and tried hard to achieve, and the players are very comfortable in their minds and in their bodies.

„This is a team that, above all their other merits, have been supreme in that department all season.“

Club president Oreste Vigorito, who is a green energy entrepreneur, took over running the side when his brother Ciro, after whom Benevento’s 12,847-capacity Stadio Ciro Vigorito is named, died in 2010.

„I promised promotion and I said that we would try forever to achieve it,“ he said. „We chose a good coach and we were good at not getting carried away when we started playing the best football in Serie B.

„We’re going up to stay up, certainly not to go back down. We may not have players like (Juventus duo Gonzalo) Higuain and (Paulo) Dybala, but we have players with big hearts.“