A former teammate, who in football terms has become a brother, another former midfielder who also passed through Cesena and finally an athletic trainer registered in the journalists’ register and with a passion for writing. The staff that will accompany Michele Mignani in the new adventure in Romagna is made up of the assistant coach Simone Vergassola, the technical collaborator Davide Campofranco and the athletic trainer Giorgio D’Urbano, three figures to whom will be added the goalkeeping trainer Antonello Degiorgi, who had already worked last season with Toscano, and a match analyst.
Vergassola and Campofranco need no introduction. The first, born in La Spezia in 1976, is Mignani’s true loyalist, with whom he shared much of his first career on the pitch (both played for Sampdoria and a lifetime in Siena) and his entire career as assistant coach. The second, born in Palermo in 1970, was “purchased” by Mignani in Bari and since then has always supported the Genoese coach: in Cesena he has already worked as a footballer, in the 2001-2002 season, when he played 24 matches without leaving any traces in a team really modest. Finally Giorgio D’Urbano. Born in Chieti in 1958 and graduated from ISEF in L’Aquila, he specialized at the School of Sport in Rome. Sport, in fact, and not just football. Because D’Urbano worked with two Italian excellences: Alberto Tomba and the national men’s volleyball team. D’Urbano was the personal athletic trainer of “Albertone” in the golden years of Italian skiing: «Talking about Alberto is like reliving a splendid dream», he declared ten years ago, when another call of absolute prestige arrived: that of Mauro Berruto, at the time technical commissioner of the Italian men’s volleyball team, who entrusted him with the athletic preparation of the team. The following year D’Urbano worked with the new coach Blengini, participating in the Rio 2016 Games, at the end of which Italvolley won the silver medal. But the ski instructor D’Urbano has not only worked on snow but also on water, having also been the trainer of the Italian national water skiing team.
In football, D’Urbano has worked on the staff of Atalanta, Pro Vercelli, Olbia, Siena, Latina, Spartak Moscow, Aek Athens and Bari. Among his hobbies, his interest in writing stands out. Finally, he is a freelance journalist and has published four volumes, which range from in-depth analysis of sporting and professional topics to autobiographical narration and novels: Il honey nelle osseo (2017), Caldo da mori (2020), Sport backstage (2021) and Schegge di thoughts (2024).
