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Parma rose from Serie B to UEFA Cup champions in the space of just five years in the 1990s, before lifting the same trophy for a second time in 1999, though establishing themselves in Italy’s top tier and Europe still took some time.
Gaining a historic promotion to Serie A in 1990 – the first in the club’s history – Parma entered the 1990/91 season with Nevio Scala in charge and simply targeting to avoid relegation. They duly managed that, finishing sixth in their debut Serie A campaign to qualify for the UEFA Cup.
On their European debut, however, Parma’s inexperience told, and they were eliminated in the first round by an 89th-minute CSKA Sofia goal. Their game preparation remained makeshift for much of the ’90s. Back-up goalkeeper Marco Ballotta often found himself driving the team bus to training… wherever that was each day.
“We didn’t have a training facility – every morning, we didn’t know where we would be training,” former Sweden international and Parma midfielder Tomas Brolin told FourFourTwo.
“We would change at the stadium, then travel in a minibus to this pitch or that pitch, almost a different one each day throughout the winter. But Parma was quiet. You could live close to a normal life.”
Luigi Apolloni, who played for Parma between 1987 and 2000, believes that much of their success was down to the unity between players and supporters.
“We were such a tight-knit group, and somehow we owed that trophy to the city and our fans,” he explains. “When we lost to CSKA Sofia in Europe it was hard to swallow, but our supporters stayed behind and chanted for us that night, to show their gratitude. We would train in a public park in the town centre, and we’d talk to elderly fans there. Families would come, too. We had a really strong bond with the city.”
For a club who had never played in Serie A before the 1990s, it was beyond their wildest dreams. Few stories have captured the imagination like Parma’s rise to the upper echelons of European football.
For a generation of fans across the continent, a cult team was created that will live on forever. A plethora of top-level footballers all played for Parma at some point during the decade, making their success feasible but no less impressive.
“Parma was something special. Eight trophies in 10 years: two UEFA Cups, the European Super Cup, one Cup Winners’ Cup, the Coppa Italia three times and a Supercoppa Italiana. What a period that was,” former Parma star Alberto Di Chiara says.
