Imperia

Along the Ligurian coast the derby that matters is the one with Sanremo, two towns an olive grove apart on the same stretch of Riviera, and in the lower divisions of Italian football that fixture has outlasted most of the league structures both clubs have passed through. Imperia have spent nearly all of a century there — the town itself only came together in 1923, and the club's line runs back to U.S. Imperia in that same year.

The peak came in Serie C. In 1978–79 the side finished fifth, the best position in the club's records, arriving there after winning Serie D's Group A the previous season. Two more Group A titles bracket it, in 1969–70 and 1980–81.

Then 1999. Imperia won the Campionato Nazionale Dilettanti group and went up to Serie C2, and lost it again in the play-outs against Novara — promotion and relegation inside a single calendar year, with nothing to show for the title but the trip.

The current structure dates from 2006, when ASD Riviera Pontedassio 2006 and ASD Pro Imperia merged and kept the 1923 founding. Under that name the club has taken the Eccellenza Liguria title three times, most recently in 2024, and the regional amateur cup in the same season.

Home is the Stadio Nino Ciccione, 3,300 capacity. The shirts are black and blue, the badge a dragon, which is where the Draghi come from.

The task now is to hold the level the 2024 double earned and to stop the pattern of the last twenty years, in which every promotion has been followed, sooner or later, by a return.