Cagliari

Cagliari sit in Serie A, and each season now carries a familiar task: stay there. The club has bounced between Serie A and Serie B repeatedly in its history, most recently pulling itself back up by winning Serie B in 2015/16.

The team began life on 30 May 1920, put together by a surgeon, Gaetano Fichera, and played its first match that September against Torres. Money troubles broke the original club apart in 1935, and Unione Sportiva Cagliari was formed on its ruins to carry the name forward.

Everything else in the club's history sits in the shadow of one season. In 1969/70, Cagliari won Serie A. The team that did it is remembered through Luigi Riva, who never played for another club in his career: 315 appearances, 164 goals, and a place as Italy's all-time top scorer with 35 for the national side. Cagliari have never repeated that title.

Home games are played at the Unipol Domus, a 16,416-seat ground that carried the name Sardegna Arena until July 2021; the club has plans for a permanent new stadium after 2025. The shirt splits down the middle in red and blue, colours lifted from the city's coat of arms — red for the House of Savoy, blue for the sea and sky around the island. Supporters and locals still call the team Casteddu, the Sardinian word for the city itself.

One Scudetto, one club, one island: 1970.