Historic promotion of Matto Strozzato to A2
A historic feat by the young chess players of Matto Strozzato, who after a few seasons in Serie B have earned promotion to A2, the series in which they will compete in the 2017 CIS. After a few years of hard-fought survival in Serie B, the feat had already been narrowly missed in the 2015 season, when a final second place was achieved against all predictions. The protagonists of this extraordinary result were the young Francesco Ferraguti, Massimiliano Ballista, Luca Tazzioli, Riccardo Dionigi, Davide Carletti and Mattia Simonini. Starting, as almost every year, from the bottom positions in terms of average Elo, our boys managed to make up for the starting ranking with individual performances of the very highest level and great team solidity, which in this type of competition often makes the difference. Warmest congratulations also to the team's long-standing captain Roberto Simonini, who over the years has always managed to hold the group together and provide the right motivation. It is evident from the outside that this is a victory achieved by a team of friends, even before being chess players wearing the shirt of the same association, which is proud to record such a prestigious result in its roll of honour. It is important to underline how many teams have signed players from other associations or even foreign players to achieve promotion to Serie A2. The result achieved is therefore all the more valuable given that all the protagonists come from Club 64's youth section. The Matto Strozzato boys and their families dedicate the victory to the memory of their friend Gigi Ferraguti, Francesco's father, who will certainly have rejoiced at the result of Francesco and his team-mates. Below the news item we reproduce the thoughts that the boys' families wished to dedicate to Gigi.