Ilario Castagner, the Perugia coach of miracles has died

Ilario Castagner died on the day of the derby between “his” Perugia and Ternana. His son Federico gave the news on social media: “Today the most beautiful smile of Italian football went away. Thanks to all the doctors and health personnel of the Santa Maria della Misericordia hospital in Perugia who have taken take care of him. Bye, dad.”

Castagner was born on 18 December 1940 in Vittorio Veneto but he linked his figure as a footballer first and then as a coach to the Umbrian club, of which he was center forward from 1961 to 1964 and then coach from 1974 to 1980 (and then, in two other occasions, in the 90s).

Castagner built the “Perugia of miracles”, capable of recovering even from the terrible shock of the death on the pitch of captain Renato Curi, who suffered a heart attack at the age of just 24, during the match against Juventus on 30 October 1977, in the stadium which was later dedicated. That team was able to take second place in the 1978-1979 championship behind Milan. For the first time in the history of the single group Italian championships, a club finished the tournament without suffering defeats: 11 wins and 19 draws. Primacy then equaled only in 1991-1992 by Milan himself and in 2011-2012 by Juventus.

In his career Castagner has coached, in addition to Lazio, the two Milanese: in 1982-1983, with a championship dominated, he brought Milan back from B to A, where he was called by Silvano Ramaccioni, former sporting director of Perugia. In the following season, however, he was sacked and changed team, not city: at the helm of Inter he finished the 1984-1985 championship in third place – the one won by Bagnoli’s Verona – and reached the semi-finals of the UEFA Cup, where he was eliminated by Real Madrid in the challenge poisoned by the launch of a marble, which hit Beppe Bergomi on the head.

Then again the province, between Ascoli, Pescara and Pisa, until the new call of Perugia, plunged into Serie C1 and with a certainly not easy president like Luciano Gaucci. Two promotions – from C1 to B and from B to A – despite the interlude of an exemption. In the 1998-1999 season, the one in which Hidetoshi Nakata launched in A, he resigned after twenty days of the championship, after yet another disagreement with Gaucci and definitively closed his career as a coach.

He chose to stay and live in Perugia, where in 2006 he was also named honorary president. And in Perugia, in his Perugia, he left.