Doges, saints, failed match-fixing, play-offs, and goals: so many stories in the matches between Venice and Bari.

So far away. So close, Bari and Venice. 325 nautical miles and 800 kilometers separate them. Uniting them is the Adriatic Sea and the centuries-old opening to the East. And then there's Serie B in football. This is a story of sea, sieges, and doges. Of churches and celebrations. A story that spans more than a millennium. And it's also marked by goals, transfer market duels, failed match-fixing, and playoffs.

This story begins in the Early Middle Ages. In 1002, Bari was a Byzantine capital thriving in trade. The Saracens besieged it. The intervention—to defend the trade route in the lower Adriatic—by Doge Pietro Urseolo II "with a hundred wooden ships," an ally of the Byzantines, averted the Arab threat that had lasted six months. The Venetians, in this circumstance, also used "fire-darts" (flaming darts launched at water level by means of hidden reeds that did not go out in the water, according to the Benedictine monk Goffredo Malaterra). Once the danger had passed, the people of Bari celebrate the Vidua Vidue on Ascension Day to commemorate the event – ​​a celebration reinstated in 2014. The name comes from “la vì, la vì” ( you see it, you see it) in the Bari dialect, referring to the incoming Venetian fleet and later becoming, over the centuries, thanks to some pranksters from Bari , “la vidue, la vidue” ( the widow, the widow ). The Vidua Vidue , not surprisingly, takes place at the same time as the Festa della Sensa in Venice. Furthermore, in the old town stands the church of San Marco dei Veneziani, built specifically to thank the Venetians for their armed intervention. Meanwhile, the curtain of the Petruzzelli theatre, destroyed by arson on 27 October 1991, was decorated by the famous local painter Raffaele Armenise with a depiction of Pietro Orseolo II's intervention.

Sunday's match (7:00 PM) will be the 20th Serie B match in Venice. In the 19 previous matches, the Venetians have won eleven, the last one on March 10, 2024, a 3-1 victory (goal by Gytkjaer, who is currently at Bari but will miss the match due to injury, Altare and Pohjanpalo, and Puscas for the visitors) and promotion to Serie A at the end of the season, the Biancorossi remaining safe after a playout against Ternana. There have been five draws, the last 1-1 on January 6, 2003, with goals from the Brazilian Anderson and Spinesi. The Biancorossi have won three, the last 1-2 on October 8, 2022. The visitors took the lead through Antenucci, Ceccaroni equalized, and Cheddira scored the winning penalty. Venezia have scored a total of 34 goals, double the number they conceded in the 19 previous matches.

Bari also has its own "doge" in history. They lost him in October 2014. It's Bruno Cicogna from Venice, a left winger for the red and whites from 1958 to 1968. With 262 appearances (and 36 goals), he ranks fifth among the club's most loyal supporters.

The "Catania case" upended the format of the Serie B tournament in the summer of 2003. The result was a very long 24-team championship with five promotions (plus another after the playoff with the 15th-placed club in Serie A) and four relegations: the fourth to be decided after a playout. Bari, fourth-from-bottom, faced Venezia, fifth-from-bottom, at the end of the regular season and having won both direct clashes with the red and whites (3-2 at home and 2-1 at the San Nicola ). The playout, played between June 16th and 19th, was slightly more balanced. Bari won (1-0) at home in the first leg with a goal from Salvatore Bruno. Venezia overturned the defeat at the Penzo, achieving safety with goals from Julien Brellier and Raffaele Biancolino, the current Avellino coach. Bari, therefore, was in Serie C. But it was reinstated "thanks" to Napoli's failure to register.

Venezia-Bari in the second division is a 38-game classic. The first in the newly formed Serie B. On October 20, 1929, just days after the Wall Street Crash, Bari defeated the Venetians 5-1 at the Campo degli Sports. It was the third matchday, but for the red and whites, led by Austrian Josep Uridil, known as "Pepi," it was the second, following the postponement of Genoa against Dominante. With the score at 5-0, Aldo Gorini scored the first goal conceded by Bari in Serie B history. In the return match, on March 16, 1930, Venezia won 4-1 with two goals from Alberto Rossi, who the following year would contribute three goals in twenty games to the red and whites' historic first promotion to Serie A.

Years pass. Just a few. The Serenissima is already a military and commercial power. But in 1071, the Normans wrest Bari from the Byzantines, and relations with Venice begin to strain. Bari needs to somehow regain its lost centrality in the lower Adriatic, as Robert Guiscard moves its commercial epicenter to the Tyrrhenian Sea. On the Adriatic coast, however, the cult of a man born in Myra (in modern-day Turkey) and buried there after his death in the 4th century AD is growing. It is no coincidence, then, that in the city, the name Nicholas is among the most common, along with John. The relics of that saint represent an important opportunity to restore the town's importance. Rumors that the Venetians were also interested in those relics accelerate the decision. In 1087, an expedition of 72 sailors sets sail for a series of trading stops in Asia Minor. They land at Myra and steal the bones of Saint Nicholas. The crew landed at San Giorgio (south of Bari) in May 1087. The relics were first placed in a Benedictine monastery under the care of Abbot Elias. Then, two years later, on October 1, 1089, in the presence of Pope Urban II, they were placed in the crypt of the Basilica of the same name, built in the court of the Byzantine catapan (governor). Construction of the basilica began in 1087 and was completed in 1197. And the Venetians? They brought back from Asia Minor the remains of... a relative of Saint Nicholas, which they kept in the church of San Niccolò.

It's January 24, 1999, the first matchday of the second half of the Serie A season, and the game at the Penzo Stadium in Venice is tied at 1-1. Maniero takes the lead, De Ascentris equalizes. Brazilian Tuta—real name Moacir Bastos Tuta—comes on with about ten minutes left. The equalizer is convenient for both teams. But there's a cross in the away box. Tuta makes his way through the fog, heads it in, and scores. It's the final minute of the game; there's no time for anything else. The Brazilian celebrates. Alone. None of his teammates follow him to hug him and celebrate. Venezia-Bari ends 2-1. After the match, a bit of everything happens. His teammates approach him, cursing him through gritted teeth; the opponents surround him, hound him, and start pushing him. Bari defender Gaetano De Rosa gives him a pat on the cheek. In the tunnel leading to the Penzo locker room, a brawl erupts. A brawl erupts. Accusations fly. Insults are hurled. Swear words are hurled. Everyone against everyone. And everyone against Tuta, who will also receive the Tapiro d'Oro . The Investigations Office opens a file. It's impossible to ignore a prearranged draw that was cancelled. But there are no consequences. Except for Tuta, the "Monster of the Lagoon," who will leave Italy at the end of the season amid widespread indifference despite his three-year contract.

The qualities of Valentino Mazzola, the star of what would go down in history as the Grande Torino, were not lost on a Bari fan who lived in the north and saw him play several times with the reds of Alfa Romeo Arese, a team competing in Serie C in 1938-39. It all happened just months before the outbreak of the Second World War. A conflict that, in its first year, did not involve Italy, which remained neutral. The fan brought the talented young man to the club's president, Giambattista Patarino. Patarino was persuaded and signed him in January 1940. Meanwhile, the player was called up for military service and assigned as a sailor aboard the destroyer Compienza . In the early months of 1940, he was completing his military service in Venice and, to avoid being left idle, accepted an offer from Venezia, a Serie A club. Bari, having finalized the contract with the Arese club, also moved to obtain clearance for him to transfer to Puglia, where he would continue to serve his country. This was all in accordance with the regulations for military footballers. Bureaucracy, and perhaps also intervention by the Veneto club, which was closer to the Royal Navy, however, delayed the transfer, so Mazzola also began the 1940-41 Serie A season with Venezia. Protests from Patarino's club prompted the intervention of the Football Federation's Control Commission, which opted for a compromise: Mazzola finished the season with Venezia and then moved to Bari in 1941-42. Despite being aware of the athlete's qualities, the Apulian club, which had since passed from Patarino's presidency to that of commissioner Angelo Albanese and finally to accountant Pasquale Ranieri, accepted the Commission's proposal and signed midfielder Luigi Cattaneo from Crema, a meteoric riser whose performances were remarkably similar to a... dud: two appearances. Meanwhile, the future leader of the team that perished in the Superga air disaster on May 4, 1949, continued to play for Venezia, scoring—ironically—the 2-1 goal against Bari on May 26, 1940, fifteen days before Benito Mussolini dragged Italy into a war it was wrong for and for which it was unprepared. The Biancorossi's relegation at the end of the following Serie A tournament nullified the player's signing and the agreement secured by the Commission. Thus, Mazzola remained in Venice. After moving to Torino, his goal just minutes from the end of the match at the Della Vittoria stadium on April 25, 1943, condemned Bari—who had just returned to Serie A—to a play-off against Venezia and Triestina to avoid relegation. The Biancorossi lost 3-0 in Bologna on June 6, 1943, with Sandro Puppo scoring and Francesco Pernigo scoring a brace. The relegation was later overturned after the war, and Tommaso Annoscia's team returned to the top flight. However, the episode of Mazzola's failed arrival remains unknown to most, so much so that, in 2013, the journalist Mario Pennacchia in his book Gli scudetti che vinsero la guerra (The Scudettos that Won the War) , wrote: "Strangely, Valentino's biographies would have handed down the memory that at the tryout at the Sant'Elena stadium he had shown up barefoot to save his new personal boots, but completely ignoring the story of his registration disputed between Bari, who had tied him down first, and Venezia" .