Riccardo Gaucci, former Floriana FC president between 2014 and 2020 and son of the late Perugia owner Luciano Gaucci, has reignited one of Italian football’s most debated episodes, the dramatic finale of the 1999/2000 Serie A season between Perugia and Juventus.
Speaking on the Pro Football podcast, Gaucci alleged that referee Pierluigi Collina was “ordered to play” the match despite torrential rain that had turned the Renato Curi Stadium pitch into a pool of water. The game, played on 14 May 2000, ended 1–0 for Perugia, a result that gave Lazio the Serie A title.
“Collina had the order to play that match no matter what,” Gaucci said. “If it had been postponed to the next day, there would have been chaos. Lazio had already effectively won the league with their result, and thousands of fans would have invaded Perugia. It would have been impossible to control the situation.”
The match was suspended at halftime due to a violent storm, with Collina famously walking across the pitch under an umbrella, ball in hand, searching for a patch of grass where the ball could bounce. After more than an hour’s delay, play resumed, and Alessandro Calori scored the winning goal for Perugia, a strike that ultimately delivered the title to Lazio.
“It felt like destiny,” Gaucci added. “That day, Juventus were not meant to win the Scudetto. But they had such a strong team, if they had focused less on the rain and more on the football, maybe they would have scored two or three goals.”
The comments revive lingering questions around that extraordinary afternoon, remembered for its flooded pitch, tension and controversy. Last year, former Perugia forward Alessandro Melli also claimed that both teams had discussed agreeing to a draw that would have forced a playoff, but Juventus players “did not accept.”
For Gaucci, the events of that day remain etched in Italian football history, a stormy climax to a season that defined an era and crowned Lazio champions in unforgettable circumstances.
