The game will be played on the customary date of June 25, the Feast of St John the Baptist, the Tuscan capital’s patron saint, organisers said Thursday.
On June 14, the first semifinal will see the Rossi of Santa Maria Novella and the Azzurri of Santa Croce, while the following day there will be the challenge between the Bianchi of Santo Spirito and the Verdi of San Giovanni.
All the matches in the sand of Santa Croce will start at 6 p.m. with several changes to traffic planned in the area.
As Magnificent Lords will be the three champions of Rari Nantes Florentia (the Florence water polo club) Leonardo Zazzeri, Filippo Megli and Matteo Restivo, along with karate coach Francesco Puleo, founder of Team Puleo.
The ‘Beauteous Madonna’ will be the boxer Martina Righi, who will be honoured during the semifinals.
This year, there will be a live broadcast on television, as reported in a note from Florence’s Palazzo Vecchio. The Calcio Storico will be broadcast live in the United States on the Zeam platform and delayed in Italy and around the world on Dazn.
“We are receiving requests from all over the world, especially from the USA, who have been passionate about Calcio Storico for years now,” declared Florence’s Deputy Mayor for Sports and Youth, Letziia Perini.
“The event is taking on an international scope and also requires a lot more responsibility, because we want to maintain and always guarantee our traditions in the best possible way and, at the same time, make them increasingly known.”
“There have been some small changes to the rules,” explained the president of Calcio Storico, Michele Pierguidi.
“[We are] giving more attention to the ball carrier, who cannot be hit from the neck up, and we have made the rules clearer: if this year there were to be a ‘golden try’ … five minutes of rest must be respected.
“We will be more rigid in the event of a possible invasion of the pitch,” he added.
Calcio storico Fiorentino (also known as calcio storico, calcio in livrea or calcio in costume) is an early form of football that originated during the Middle Ages in Italy.
Once widely played, the sport is thought to have started in the Piazza Santa Croce in Florence.
There it became known as the giuoco del calcio fiorentino or simply calcio, which is now also the name for association football in the Italian language.
The game may have started as a revival of the Roman sport of harpastum.
ANSA
