Azzurri Empoli FC
Italy · Founded: 1920
Empoli FC is an Italian professional football club from Empoli, a town in Tuscany between Florence and Pisa, founded in 1920. The club plays in blue and has its home at the Stadio Carlo Castellani, named after a former player who died in the Mauthausen concentration camp. It has been run for decades by president Fabrizio Corsi.
For most of its history Empoli played in the lower divisions, reaching Serie A for the first time in 1986. Since then it has moved regularly between Serie A and Serie B, earning a reputation as one of Italy's best talent factories and as a launch pad for coaches such as Luciano Spalletti, Maurizio Sarri and Marco Giampaolo.
Empoli's best Serie A finish, seventh place in 2006–07, took the club into Europe for the only time. In the 2007–08 UEFA Cup it beat FC Zürich 2–1 at home in the first round but lost the return leg 3–0 and went out.