Bellinzona

Stadio Comunale Bellinzona has held five thousand people since it opened on 27 May 1947. The 1947-48 season remains the high point: Bellinzona topped Nationalliga A once.

The club traces back to 1904, though the line is not straight. It folded within a year, resurfaced under a different name after two Ticino sides merged, was rebuilt again in 1909, and only became AC Bellinzona after absorbing Football Club Daro in 1926. That habit of coming apart and reassembling has never quite left the club. Between 1960 and 2000 it dropped out of the top flight and climbed back five separate times, lost its licence over money in 1995, and went bankrupt outright on 16 September 2013, liquidated with its debts unpaid.

It came back from nothing the following year, entering at the sixth tier until Challenge League football returned in 2022. There is a version of this club in every one of those seasons, wearing granata and white.

Vladimir Petković built his coaching reputation here before Basel, Lazio and the Switzerland national team gave him bigger stages; he took that Swiss side to the Euro 2020 quarter-finals. Mauro Lustrinelli scored 143 goals in 241 appearances for the club.

Bellinzona now plays in the Challenge League, still finding its level after rebuilding from a standing start.