The famous Italian football coach Oronzo Canà has retired to a villa in Apulia. Now, old and tired, he is enjoying a quiet life there, cultivating his vineyard, when suddenly he is summoned to Milan, in northern Italy. There the elderly chairman of a great Lombard ("Longobarda") club is suffering from dementia and has lost his powers of judgement, and the club's manager has been fired. He has decided to bring back Oronzo Canà as trainer, remembering him from his great football team of thirty years before, tasking him with bringing the club back to its old winning ways. Oronzo puts his trust in the intervention of a Russian billionaire who has bought the club for promotion. But it is a deception.

Trainer Oronzo Canà is called to manage Longobarda, the team of a small town of Northern Italy, when it's promoted to the First Division. His only task is not to go back to the Second Division, but even the team's owner plays against Longobarda since the First Division is too expensive, and the young Brazilian player bought for the team is affected by deep 'saudade'.