Unione Sportiva Triestina Calcio 1918, commonly referred to US Triestina or just Triestina, is an Italian football club based in Trieste, in the northern Friuli-Venezia Giulia region.
Triestina was one of the founding members of Serie A in 1929 and featured in Italian top flight until the late 1950s. Triestina spent the following decades in lower levels, and during that time the club was folded and re-established several times. As of the 2026–27 season it plays in Serie D, the fourth tier of Italian football.
Contents
History
From the foundation to Serie A
Between 1900 and 1915, several football clubs were active in Trieste. Some, such as Edera, founded in 1904, originated from gymnastics societies, while others, including Circolo Sportivo Ponziana Trieste (1912) and Foot-Ball Club Trieste, were more directly associated with football. Following the end of the First World War, Ponziana and Trieste merged on 18 December 1918 to form Unione Sportiva Triestina. The meeting took place at the historic Caffè Battisti on Viale XX Settembre. According to Dante di Ragogna in La storia della Triestina, the merger was encouraged by the military authorities after both clubs had been using the parade ground of the Caserma G. Oberdan as their playing field. The movement of players and supporters caused overcrowding around the barracks, leading the military command to request the creation of a single club. Captain Guglielmo Tonon negotiated a compromise allowing football activity to continue only if the two teams merged into one organisation.
Representatives present at the founding meeting included Tranquillini, Stritzel and Zigoi for Trieste, and Godina, Zack and Flaider for Ponziana. The merger was ratified on 19 January 1919, when a triumvirate composed of Bertazzoni, Fonda and Vaccari was appointed to oversee the club's early activities. A final assembly on 2 February 1919 officially confirmed the creation of Unione Sportiva Triestina, which adopted the halberd of Trieste topped by a star as its emblem. The club's first president was Doimo Iviani Ivanissevich, of Dalmatian origin, who remained in office until 1923.
Triestina initially played on a field located inside the courtyard of the Caserma G. Oberdan military barracks before moving in 1919 to a new ground in Muggia, near Trieste. In the same year, the club won the Coppa Virgola and also reached the final of the Coppa Appiani, where it lost to Padova. Between 1919 and 1920, Triestina competed in the Venezia Giulia regional championship.
Between 1919 and 1920, the club competed in the Venezia Giulia regional championship. In 1921, Triestina entered its first national competition in the Third Division (now corresponding to Serie C). The club remained in this category for two further seasons before achieving promotion to the Second Division (Serie B) in the 1923–24 season, following a qualifying tournament among northern Italian teams. Triestina won the competition by defeating Verona 3–2 in the semi-final and Pro Gorizia 1–0 in the final, with the decisive goal scored from a penalty by Sommer. During this period, Ettore Tardivello became club president.
The first refoundation in 1994
In 1994, the team was forced to fold, because of financial insolvency, and was re-founded by Giorgio Del Sabato. The team restarted as U.S. Triestina Calcio from Serie D and was readmitted to Serie C2 by the federation one year later. In 2001, after six seasons in Serie C2, the club won promotion to Serie C1 after playoffs; this was followed by a second consecutive promotion, this time to Serie B, both under head coach Ezio Rossi.
In the 2005–06 season, Triestina changed its manager five times. The list include the tandem Alessandro Calori-Adriano Buffoni, Pietro Vierchowod, caretaker Francesco De Falco, youth team coach Vittorio Russo and Andrea Agostinelli.
In addition, Triestina's owner Flaviano Tonellotto was forced to resign on 1 February 2006 by the magistrates because of a pending court procedure for bankruptcy, and his wife Jeannine Koevoets was named to replace him at the helm of the club. However, Tonellotto was successively ordered to leave the association because of financial troubles. The magistrates named Francesco De Falco as caretaker chairman with the idea of finding somebody interested to buy the club. Curiously, in the 2005–06 De Falco, a player for Triestina in the 80's, covered three different roles in the club: director of football, manager and chairman. In April 2006 the team was purchased by the Fantinel family, owners of a wine company in the region.
In recent years, Triestina struggled to mount a promotion campaign to end half-century absence from the Italian top flight. Triestina finished 8th in 2008–2009 season. However failed to remain in Serie B in the 2009–10 season, with a crashing 3–0 defeat to Padova at the play-outs, and was relegated to Lega Pro Prima Divisione after 8 years of endeavour in the second tier of Italian football, only to be readmitted to Serie B after Ancona filed for bankruptcy.
On 21 May 2011, in the season 2010–11, after a disastrous campaign, Triestina was relegated from Serie B to Lega Pro Prima Divisione, having returned there in 2002 after 11 seasons in Serie C and Serie D.
On 25 January 2012 the club in strong financial difficulty, has been declared bankrupt by the court of Trieste.
Unione Triestina 2012 / U.S. Triestina Calcio 1918
On 31 July 2012 a new company Unione Triestina 2012 S.S.D. a. r.l. was founded, that restarted from Eccellenza thanks to Article 52 of N.O.I.F. The sports title was later transferred to another "limited company in amateur sport" (Italian: Società Sportiva Dilettantistica a responsabilità limitata) U.S. Triestina Calcio 1918 s.s.d. a. r.l. in 2016. After the promotion to Serie C on 4 August 2017, the company dropped the legal suffix "amateur sport" from the name.
Colors and badge
The club's badge features a white spontoon or halberd—from where the club gets the nickname Gli Alabardati (The Halberded)—on a red background. This is inspired by the coat of arms and flag of the city of Trieste. Other features of the badge include a shining white star and the words U. S. Triestina. After this badge, the team's colours both home and away are red and white.
Honours
Serie B
Winners: 1957–58
Serie C1
Winners: 1961–62, 1982–83
Coppa Italia Serie C
Winners: 1993–94
Current squad
As of 22 August 2026
Note: Flags indicate national team as defined under FIFA eligibility rules; some limited exceptions apply. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.
Former managers
Unione Sportiva Triestina
Nuova Unione Sportiva Calcio Triestina
Unione Triestina 2012
Società Sportiva Dilettantistica Unione Sportiva Triestina Calcio 1918