Today in Serie A – April 2, 1998: Vicenza Beat Chelsea in the Cup Winners Cup | OneFootball

How many times must a player like Domenico Di Carlo have thought about when, only five years before, his Vicenza fumbled in Serie C1 – the third division of Italian football?

Now, on April 2, 1998, they were welcoming Chelsea at the Romeo Menti Stadium in the Semi Finals of what would turn out to be the penultimate edition of the Cup Winners Cup. Time had run fast.

A once glorious calcio club, where players like Paolo Rossi and Roberto Baggio had made their bones, Vicenza had spent the 1980s and the first half of the 1990s decades swinging between the Serie B and the Serie C1. Then, they experienced, a sudden, unexpected rebirth, led by coach Francesco Guidolin and a bunch of no-nonsense, hard-working players like Di Carlo, who had been with the club since 1990 and went on to made his debut in Serie A at 31 years of age (!)

Vincenza got promoted to Serie A in the 1994/95 season, then triumphed the Coppa Italia in the 1996/97 campaign, disposing of Napoli 3-1 on aggregate. That won them the right to represent Italy in the Cup Winners Cup, the now defunct trophy that put against each other all the European domestic cup winners.

They steamrolled past Legia Warszaw, Shakthar Donetsk, and Roda Kerkrade before facing Chelsea in the Semi Finals. Despite still being in their pre-Roman Abrahmovic days, the Blues were seemingly out of Vicenza’s league. But, on that night, the Biancorossi earned a 1-0 win with a single strike from Lamberto Zauli, yet another of those underdogs who was 27 but had never played in the top-flight until nine months before!

Not all fairy tales have a happy ending, though. Two weeks later, Chelsea won 3-1 at Stamford Bridge, despite going down again, and booked their ticket to the Final, which they would eventually won at Stuttgart’s expense.

In the following season, Vicenza were relegated again to Serie B, where they have been mostly faring since then, save for another short foray in the top-flight in 2000/01.