Venezia part ways with Stroppa as Serie A errors pile up
Six straight league defeats and the division's leakiest defence cost Giovanni Stroppa his job, with Venezia's promotion-winning system exposed at the higher level.
Venezia have dismissed head coach Giovanni Stroppa, ending his spell in charge with the club bottom of Serie A and without a league win all season, Football Italia reported.
The club confirmed the decision on Tuesday morning, hours after a 3-1 defeat away to Atalanta extended Venezia's losing run to six matches in a row. A statement from the club thanked Stroppa for the work, professionalism and commitment of his staff, while noting his role in winning promotion from Serie B in the 2025-26 campaign.
A defensive record that explains the sacking
The numbers behind the decision are stark. Venezia have lost all six of their opening Serie A fixtures, scoring five goals and conceding 16 — the worst defensive record in the division, according to Football Italia. A goal difference of minus 11 after six matches points to more than bad luck; it describes a defensive structure that has repeatedly failed to hold shape under sustained pressure.
Conceding at a rate of nearly three goals per match is rarely down to individual errors alone. It usually reflects a team unable to control transitions — the moments immediately after losing the ball, when a defence is stretched and out of its preferred shape. A side shipping 16 goals in six games is a side being repeatedly caught in those moments, whether through a high defensive line being exploited in behind or a midfield failing to screen the back four.
Across all competitions this season Venezia have won only once in eight outings, that victory coming against Serie B opposition, Modena, in the Coppa Italia. They were then eliminated by Udinese in the following round. A single competitive win in eight matches, against a side from the division below, is a measure of collapse that goes well beyond one poor run of league form.
Why a promotion system did not scale up
Stroppa earned Venezia's promotion by building a team that performed as the dominant force for long stretches of the Serie BKT campaign, the club's own statement acknowledged. That is itself useful context: systems built to dominate possession and territory against Serie B opposition do not automatically translate against Serie A sides with faster transitions, sharper pressing triggers and more clinical finishing.
This is a familiar pattern in Italian football, where promoted clubs often retain the coach who delivered promotion only to discover that the same tactical approach is punished at the higher level. Without the ball dominance Venezia likely enjoyed in Serie B, gaps open between lines, and a defence set up to compress space in a lower-tempo league can be stretched by Serie A's quicker ball progression.
The six straight defeats, and the goal difference that accompanies them, suggest Venezia were not merely unlucky but structurally unprepared for the step up — a gap between divisions that cost the coach his job within the first two months of the season.
The search for a replacement and what comes next
Stroppa becomes the fourth Serie A coach to lose his job this season, following Fabio Grosso at Fiorentina, Domenico Tedesco at Bologna and Carlos Cuesta at Parma, Football Italia noted. That volume of early-season changes underlines how quickly patience runs out once a defensive record like Venezia's becomes apparent.
Gazzetta and Sky Sport Italia have reported that Paolo Zanetti and Davide Nicola are the leading candidates to take over, according to Football Italia's sourcing of those outlets. Neither appointment is confirmed, and the move remains unconfirmed until Venezia announce a successor.
Whoever takes charge inherits a squad bottom of the table with the division's worst defensive record and only one win from eight matches in all competitions. The immediate task will be restoring defensive structure quickly, since Venezia's next fixture is at home to Napoli on Saturday, October 17, kicking off at 15:00 CET.
That match offers an early test of whether a change in coaching approach can address the transition defending and goal-conceding patterns that defined the Stroppa era's final weeks, against a Napoli side that will punish the kind of open spaces Venezia have repeatedly surrendered this season.