Serie A · 1990
Parma's first win: the team before the trophies
It took Parma 77 years to reach Serie A. In their second match there, they beat the champions of Italy and Diego Maradona.
Parma had existed for 77 years before they reached Serie A. Promotion came in 1990, sealed with a 2–0 win over their local rivals Reggiana on the final day of the Serie B season. The coach was Nevio Scala, who had taken over a side whose foundations had been laid by Arrigo Sacchi, and who changed Sacchi's 4-4-2 into a 5-3-2.
Behind the club was money of a kind Parma had never had. Parmalat had bought almost all of the shares, and its chief executive, Calisto Tanzi, was the club's backer. The Parmalat name went across the shirts.
The first two games
Their first Serie A match, on 9 September 1990, was against Juventus. Parma lost 2–1; Alessandro Melli's penalty came two minutes from time.
Their second was on 23 September, against Napoli. The fixture could hardly have been harder. Napoli were the reigning champions, having won the title the previous season two points ahead of Milan, and they had Diego Maradona.
Parma won 1–0. It was the first victory in the club's Serie A history. Melli, looking back, put it simply: a 1–0 win against Maradona, "our first historic win in Serie A."
The team before the trophies
The side that beat Napoli was not yet a famous one, but it was a good one. Cláudio Taffarel was in goal, Georges Grün and Lorenzo Minotti in defence, Tomas Brolin and Marco Osio in midfield, and Melli up front. Melli finished the season with 13 league goals, Brolin seven and Osio six.
Parma did not fade after the early excitement. In their first season in the top flight they qualified for the UEFA Cup.
What followed
The trophies came quickly. Parma won the Coppa Italia in 1992, beating Juventus in the final. In 1993 they won the Cup Winners' Cup against Antwerp at Wembley. The UEFA Cup followed in 1995, and in 1999 they won it again, beating Marseille 3–0, as well as another Coppa Italia.
The one prize that escaped them was the league. "We neither had the mental stamina nor resilience to win it," Scala said.
All of that was ahead of them on 23 September 1990. That day, they were a newly promoted club that had just beaten the champions of Italy.