In only their second Serie A campaign ever, 2 years after their previous experience in the top flight, Benevento represent one of the main disappointments of the season. In fact, they were coming off a record promotion from Serie B, with a 7-week advance, while their squad was deemed a rather good one and coach Filippo Inzaghi held the favour of the critics.
Their beginning of the campaign was a rather inconsistent one as they won 2 out of the initial 3 but then lost the following 4. However, between weeks 8 and 16 they played their best football, obtaining draws against Juventus and Lazio and defeating relegation contenders like Genoa and Cagliari. Thanks to this run they reached the top 10 and they started having European dreams.
What happened then is a mystery. They simply ran out of steam and lost confidence, becoming utterly incapable of winning games. Between weeks 17 and 38 they only managed to win once, as they defeated Juventus on the road in round 28, while collecting plenty of draws and losses.
They still played an aggressive football at times but had more problems scoring goals and often failed to kill matches off when needed. Not too surprisingly, their attack, with 40 goals, was only better than Parma. They became very fragile defensively and only kept 2 clean sheets in 2021 while they had kept 5 in the initial 14 rounds.
Having fallen in the bottom 3 by week 34, Benevento could have avoided relegation with a win against Cagliari, Torino or Crotone but they lost to the Sardinians and drew the other 2, thus deserving the final fall.
With 8 goals and 5 assists, Lapadula was their best player but he did not really have competition as winter-arrival Gaich was slightly disappointing. Also underperforming were players like Caldirola and, in the final weeks, Glik at the back while Letizia, Tuia and Caprari, who did well, were limited by injuries.
Benevento will now start life without Inzaghi and will need time before returning to the Serie A again.
