the coach resigned, then changed his mind and rehired after 20 days! He has been on the team's bench for 44 years!

In big football, there are other examples of longevity among coaches: Frank Schmidt at Heidenheim (since 2007) or Diego Simeone at Atlético Madrid (since 2011).

The benchmarks of managerial loyalty for fans around the world will forever remain Arsene Wenger and his 22 years at Arsenal and Sir Alex Ferguson, who managed Manchester United for 27 years.

But everyone pales in front of the name and story of Luigi Fresco.

Virtus is only the third team in the hierarchy of the city of Verona, being in the shadow of Hellas, a first league team, and the more famous Chievo, which, after bankruptcy, now plays in Serie D.

However, this small club is talked about precisely because of its coach. “The Italian Alex Ferguson”, as he is nicknamed in his country, is an absolute rarity. In almost 45 years of activity, his break at Virtus lasted only 20 days.

Luigi Fresco: from eight-year-old to president

Fresco donned the Virtus jersey for the first time at the age of 8. He started flirting with the coaching profession at the age of 12, alongside his colleagues, and three years later he managed the youth team.

On April 1, 1982, at the age of 21, he not only became the head coach of the then amateur team, which was playing in the last Italian league, but also directly took over the position of president.

An arduous, but successful, upward path followed. Luigi Fresco took his beloved club up six divisions, permanently turning amateur status into professional status and reaching Serie C.

Luigi Fresco took under protection hundreds of immigrants who arrived in Italy

He put his whole soul into the Verona club, which is illustrated not only by the results. In the days when the team played in the amateurs, Luigi Fresco even sold newspapers, just to have something to pay his players.

Under his leadership, Virtus never meant just a football team, but also became a kind of social refuge. Luigi Fresco provided shelter to needy families at the base of the club and actively helped immigrants arriving in Italy.

“At the beginning of the 90s, we took several Albanians under our wing. Then, for fifteen years, young people from the former Yugoslavia,” Luigi Fresco recalled in the fall of 2020.

“Not long ago, the prefecture of Verona sent us a group of young Africans who wanted to play sports. Over time, others joined them. Among them are some who found their vocation in football,” said Fresco.

A good example is goalkeeper Sheikh Sibi, who arrived in Italy by boat. He ended up in the Costagrande refugee center in Verona, and fate brought him to Luigi Fresco.

He commented on his story: “I assigned him to another amateur football team. Later, he convinced us that he deserved more, so he has been defending the goal of the first team for five years. Then He received a call-up to the Gambia national team.”

Luigi Fresco – fearless in the face of rival ultras

When one of his Brazilian strikers became the target of acts of racism from another team's fans, Luigi Fresco went to solve the problem directly on their turf.

“The next day, after the game, I went to the bar where the ultras used to meet. I was amazed to see how they coexisted peacefully in the same place with black people, even though 24 hours before they had insulted my player. I talked to them about what happened in the stadium and understood that it was a stupid way to joke. But that doesn't excuse them,” Fresco described the incident with the hooligans.

Luigi Fresco is his own boss: he fired and then forgave himself

Despite his position at the club, Fresco cannot stand being called “Mr. President” or “Mister”. He asks everyone to call him simply “Gigi” and delegates his administrative tasks to other employees.

Since the 2018/19 season, Virtus has been continuously active in the third Italian league, and in 2023 they achieved an excellent sixth place in group A, which allowed them to play in the round of 16 of the promotion play-off.

The present, however, is much more gloomy. The team provisionally occupies the 18th place, and the formation is preparing for the barrier of maintenance in the third league, feeling the threat of relegation.

Even the arrival of Hachim Mastour (27 years old), formerly at AC Milan, did not help to obtain better results.

For Luigi Fresco to reinvigorate the team and bring back to life the locker room that had fallen into lethargy and disappointment, he took an unprecedented step on March 4, 2026. He resigned from the position of head coach and retired to the position of second technician.

Thus, the story of the man who sat on the same bench for almost half a century seemed to have ended. But football sometimes has an extraordinary sense of irony. As Virtus scored a single point in the next three championship stages, “Gigi's” “retirement” lasted exactly 20 days.

On March 24, he returned as the head technician of the Virtus Verona club, with the desire to save his beloved club. His already unusual biography already has two milestones: head coach of the Virtus Verona team from April 1, 1982 to March 4, 2026. And then from March 24, 2026 to… the present.

It is possible that Luigi Fresco will retire from the technical bench if Virtus Verona will save themselves from relegation and settle for the chair for good.