Michele Mignani is the new coach of Cesena. In this afternoon’s meeting between Fabio artigianato and the coach’s manager (Mignani was in Bari due to previous commitments: he will go up to Romagna on Thursday morning) an agreement was found across the board: Mignani will sign a one-year contract with Cesena that an option is held to extend the agreement until 2026. With Mignani, his deputy Simone Vergassola and the athletic trainer Giorgio D’Urbano will go up to Romagna. The staff will then include Antonello Degiorgi, goalkeeper coach, and Massimo Magrini, for injury recovery: both were already in Cesena. Mignani would also like to bring with him a former Juventus player, Davide Campofranco, who he had as a technical collaborator in Bari: Campofranco, however, is still under contract with Bari and it will be necessary to understand his intentions in the next few days.
Cesena will announce Mignani’s hiring tomorrow. The new coach will go to Romagna on Thursday and could already be presented to the press over the weekend, as well as visit the stadium, Villa Silvia and the Acquapartita training camp.
Mignani is a coach who has played with both a three-man defense and a four-man defence. A 52-year-old from Genoa, he had a very good career as a footballer as a central defender. Raised in Samp, he also wore the shirt of the Under 21 national team. He played 49 games in Serie A (one with Samp, 48 with Siena, scoring one goal, away to Bologna) and 237 in Serie B.
After starting his career as a coach in Siena’s youth team, he made his debut with the big boys in Serie D with Olbia, with whom he won the play-offs, obtaining promotion to Serie C in 2015-2016. He remains in C with the Sardinians, but does not finish the season. In 2017-2018 he went to coach Siena, the team of his adopted city, and brought them one step away from promotion, losing the play-off final against Braglia’s Cosenza (1-3). In the following season he reached the play-offs again but was eliminated by Novara led by director Zebi and coach Viali. In December 2019 he arrived in Modena: Covid interrupted the season early and the Emilian club decided not to play the play-offs. Confirmed, they finished 4th in Group B ahead of Cesena, but lost to Albinoleffe in the play-offs. The following summer he went to Bari: he won Group C of Serie C and rose to Serie B, then dragging the Apulian Galletti to within a minute of Serie A. Then in the 96th minute of Bari-Cagliari, a few seconds from promotion, the freezing shower of Pavoletti’s goal: “A goal that I never saw again.” This year he finally starts again in Bari: he is sacked after 9 defeats (10 points with just one defeat, in Parma). At the end of the season he takes over Corini in Palermo, maintains the play-off position, beats Sampdoria in the preliminary round and loses against Venezia in the semi-final. And now Cesena.
Unlike D’Aversa, who went to talk to Empoli on Monday without even informing the club (despite ARC asking him since Sunday evening if the rumors coming from Tuscany were true), Mignani has shown a crazy desire for Cesena.
