History
The team was founded in 1911 as Brescia Football Club, joining the Terza Categoria division the same year. In 1913, Brescia was promoted to First Division for its first time ever, and from 1929 it played in Serie A for six of the seven following seasons. Successively, the club played among the two top divisions until 1982, when Brescia was relegated to Serie C1. The club then returned to Serie B in 1985. Brescia played outside the two national tournaments of Lega Calcio (A and B) only four years: under this aspect, only eleven clubs in all Italy marked a better performance.
Brescia won the Anglo-Italian Cup in 1994, the biggest notable achievement in their entire history to date. Brescia actually came to the footballing forefront only in 2000, however, when the previously-unfancied club signed former FIFA World Player of the Year Roberto Baggio, who led Brescia to a seventh place finish in the 2000–01 season, the best result during its time in Serie A, thus qualifying for the UEFA Intertoto Cup. Successively, Brescia reached the Intertoto Cup finals, then lost to Paris Saint-Germain for the away goals rule. Baggio spent four years at Brescia before retiring in 2004 and during those historic four years, Brescia became widely known as "Baggio's Brescia." During Baggio's four-year spell with Brescia, Brescia recorded their best-ever run of staying in Serie A. In the very next season that followed Baggio's retirement (2004–2005), however, Brescia were relegated from Serie A on the last day, finishing a lowly 19th. Brescia struggled for returning to top flight after the relegation and finally returned to Serie A after beating Torino with a 2–1 aggregate in the 2009–10 season.
Former Spanish captain and FC Barcelona manager Josep Guardiola, the Romanian Gheorghe Hagi, striker Luca Toni, and Juventus star Andrea Pirlo — born in Brescia — have also spent time in Brescia.
Read more about this topic: Brescia Calcio
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“We don’t know when our name came into being or how some distant ancestor acquired it. We don’t understand our name at all, we don’t know its history and yet we bear it with exalted fidelity, we merge with it, we like it, we are ridiculously proud of it as if we had thought it up ourselves in a moment of brilliant inspiration.”
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