In the beginning, it was known as Reggiana Calcio Femminile, a sporting club founded in 1976 initially under the name Associazione Calcio Santa Croce, from the name of the homonymous district of Reggio Emilia. It was then affiliated to the autonomous Italian Women’s Football Association since 1978. At the end of the 1980/1981 season, the team took the name of Reggiana Calcio Femminile for good and entered the Women’s Serie B. In 1985, the Club led by President Giandomenico Gozzi, was promoted to the Women’s Serie A for the first time in its history. The same season, the autonomous Women’s Association ceased to exist, leaving all activities to the Italian Football Association (FIGC). In 1987, the Club passed from Gozzi’s lead to the Presidency of the industrialist Renzo Zambelli, whose philosophy of investment and planning has been rewarded with three Scudetti – championship titles (1989/1990, 1990/1991 and 1992/1993) and two Coppe Italia – Italian Cups (1991/1992 and 1992/1993). These were the years of the club’s greatest glory, seasons in which many of the most talented Italian football players and some important international athletes followed one another in Reggio. The arrival in Reggio Emilia in 1987 of Elisabetta “Betty” Vignotto, who ended her competitive career in the white-blue club , taking on the role of manager of the club in the beginning and becoming its President in 1995, is one of the most important events of such years. The 1992/1993 season was the one in which the Reggiana won both the Scudetto and the Coppa Italia.
Unfortunately, the following year President Zambelli, also due to his poor health, left the post to his favorite manager, Elisabetta Vignotto. As the patron was no longer in office, the size of the investment was drastically reduced and the club fell back into years of economic difficulties, alternating years of regional Serie C and Serie B. They finally got promoted to the Serie A in 2003/2004, beginning a new period of glory reaching its highest level with the victory of their third Coppa Italia in 2009/2010. From the 2011/2012 season, a new phase of downsizing began once again, forcing the Reggiana back into regional Serie C. The last promotion to the Women’s Serie B dates back to season 2012/2013. The seasons are swinging for the club, with alternating periods of splendor and just as many moments of struggle.
At the same time, in the 2000’s, Giorgio Squinzi, the owner of the important Mapei industrial group, began his black&green adventure. First as sponsor and then as the owner, he’s part of the entire climb of Sassuolo Calcio from the lower categories to the Serie A conquered at the end of the 2012/2013 season. With the arrival at the black&green club of CEO Giovanni Carnevali in 2014, the club reorganization, with which the owners intend to consolidate Sassuolo Calcio at the top of Italian football, is completed. In 2015, Sassuolo Calcio responds to the invitation of F.I.G.C. to develop women’s football by creating its first and historic women’s team, made of twenty girls of twelve years old or less, who participate with great enthusiasm in the Provincial Pulcini Tournament, facing boys of the same category.
At the end of the 2016/2017 season, season in which Reggiana Calcio Femminile changed its name to Sassuolo Calcio Femminile, the First Team obtained the important promotion to the Serie A, where they still play today and where they achieve better results every year: avoiding relegation in 2017/2018 and 5th place in 2018/2019.
The relationship between the clubs, U.S. Sassuolo Calcio and A.S.D. Sassuolo Calcio Femminile, become more and more consolidated over time and the interest in the women’s movement grows to its peak with the 2019 World Cup. The investments in women’s football by the Squinzi family Club are increasingly substantial and, at the end of the 2018/2019 Championship, the black&green club definitively acquires the Women’s Serie A title. This is how the 2019/2020 season started, the first one completely played under the name of U.S. Sassuolo Calcio, as a single club. A.S.D. Sassuolo Calcio Femminile has sold the sports title and continues its activity independently, dedicating itself to the development of basic activities and school projects for young children. Today’s figures are definitely more significant than at the beginning of the black&green project: more than 200 registered athletes divided into 10 teams, from the First Team to the youngest Pulcine ; the Youth Sector activity is carried out both in Sassuolo and Reggio Emilia, strengthening our presence in the territory and relations with the Community.