IFL 2026 Preview
- Pasquale Basile
- 3 days ago
- 13 min read
In Italy, once the NFL season is over, anticipation grows ever greater for the start of the Italian Football League.
The Italian Football League, now in its forty-fifth edition, is ready to return at the end of February, as per tradition, with plenty of players and plenty of stars, both established and emerging, ready to battle it out on the Italian pitches.
First Down Magazine, this year's Media Partner of FIDAF, will accompany you in this preview with the top names to follow in this championship, all the teams, and all the important dates, from Week 1 to the final in early July in Ferrara.
NOTE: At the time of publication, some transfers had not been reported. Furthermore, this article is based on what the teams have posted on their social media and website profiles.
Guelfi Firenze
Guelfi Firenze are undoubtedly the team to beat in 2026. After a perfect season that culminated in the title victory in Toledo, Ohio, against the Ancona Dolphins, the Tuscans aim to repeat their feat and become one of the top teams in Italian and European football.
In fact, in addition to the IFL, the Viola will participate, after a year-long hiatus for Italian teams, in the CEFL, Europe's premier club competition, with their debut scheduled for May 16th against the winner of the Serbian derby between the Kragujevac Wild Boars and the Belgrade Blue Dragons, a match that will be played at the end of April.
On the roster, there are few significant changes. Andrea Fimiani will continue to lead the Tuscan attack, while both Eystin Salum and Frankie Stola have been confirmed as imports, along with former Lazio Marines player Jaren Banks, who returns to Italy after playing in the GFL.
Regarding the domestic transfer market, there's little news there either. Alberto Meletti and Andrea Fantazzini have arrived from the Warriors Bologna, while Mattia Capogrosso, a veteran of Italian football who played for Saints Padova (IFL2) last year, has accepted the challenge of the violet team.
The significant change, however, comes from the sideline. Byron McAdams, the head coach who managed the Italian champions last year, has accepted the call-up to the Bialystok Lowlanders in Poland as Defensive Coordinator, joining the coaching staff led by another old acquaintance of Italian football, former Lazio Marines and Aquile Ferrara head coach Dan Pippin.
Fabrizio Bocci, last year’s Offensive Coordinator, has been promoted once again to the Head Coach duty, while on the defensive side, Sam Dickey is the new Defensive Coordinator.
Expectations on the banks of the Arno river will be high again this year, with a title to defend and much to prove on the continental level.
Dolphins Ancona
Rik Parker's team emerged from its first finals appearance in 21 years, and this year they want to prove that last year's Italian Bowl wasn't a one-off.
The Dolphins are now one of the league's top forces and have always come close, but this year they'll try to change things again, starting with the import players.
Leading the offense, replacing Blake Eaton, will be Carter Cravens, a QB from Morehead State, while the main name on defense will be Cameren Grodhaus, a Davenport native who also played at Lake Erie College. The icing on the cake is former Colorado State player Henry Blackburn, another player making his first overseas experience after a stellar college football career.
Among the Italian players worth noting is the return of former Warriors Bologna player Matteo Dazzani, who performed well last year. Among the new arrivals are veteran Junior De Jesus and young star Giovanni Zani, who, after being withdrawn by the Bergamo Lions, has settled in the Marche region.
There are two notable losses this season: Riccardo Petrelli and Raffaele Rotelli, who have joined the FIDAF Flag Football project (more on that later).
In the community, Ancona has always been considered the Minnesota Vikings of the IFL. They've often come within inches of glory, but let's see if things will change definitively this year.
Parma Panthers
Having failed to qualify for the Toledo final, the Parma Panthers are looking to start fresh with the Italian Bowl in Ferrara in their sights.
The semifinal defeat against Ancona didn't dent the Parma Panthers, one of the strongest teams in Italy, who are making a few, but very significant, changes.
Import Player Jaylin Parnell and former Legnano Frogs player Carlo Tassan are among those confirmed, while the offense will be led this year by Roman Fuller, former QB at Tulsa and Colorado State-Pueblo. Another big signing for the Panthers is former Seamen Milano and Pirates Albisola WR Ismail Lamamra, while Gabriele Paganini, after his experience at Rhinos Milano, comes back to the Emilian team.
The most notable absence will be Simone Alinovi, who has decided to join the federation ahead of the Los Angeles Olympics.
The main change in the Coaching Staff is the arrival of Luca Aschero from the Bergamo Lions, who joins Brian Michitti's roster as DB Coach.
The Ducali will be another team with high expectations in the 2026 season, with the Italian Bowl at home, in Emilia-Romagna, as their main objective.
Frogs Legnano
After a somewhat unforgettable season like last year, things have changed at Frogs Legnano, both on the field and in the sidelines.
Davide Donnini is no longer the Lombardy team's head coach, with former Straubing Spiders head coach Cody Kent taking over for the 2026 season.
The big news for the Frogs is the departure of Luke Zahradka, who was presented as the first player in the FIDAF Blue Team project ahead of his upcoming matches with the Italian national flag football team. Additionally, several players have decided to leave the team to join other local teams.
The import players will also be different this year: Josh Taylor will lead the offensive operations, Luke Caliendo will be his number one target, while Logan Dykstra will help Coach Kent on the defensive end.
No new additions to last year's roster have been reported, at least on the official pages. However, there have been some notable departures, though they remain a matter of some uncertainty. This includes Kevin Khay, who was supposed to play for Varese this year, although the Skorpions' retirement has changed the situation, and at the time of this article's publication, it's unclear whether he has returned to the Frogs or not.
Despite the departures and a very eventful offseason, the Frogs still want to do well and, why not, return to winning a title they've been missing for many years.
Giaguari Torino
After qualifying for the playoffs last year, their first since returning to the IFL, Giaguari Torino are aiming high in 2026.
With both Kurt Ramler and Juha Hakala confirmed as Head Coach and Defensive Coordinator, major changes have been made on the field, particularly with the import players.
Running Back Ethan Greenfield, who also has experience in Finland with the Kuopio Steelers, defensive back Cameron Colangelo, formerly of the Vienna Vikings and Cottbus Crayfish, and former Warriors Bologna player Gabriel Piola fill out the foreign player pool for the Piemontese team.
Among the new local additions, noteworthy are the return of Luciano Giuliani, one of last season's top receivers, and the arrivals of Alex Hutanu and Destiny Osawe Giuliani, rounding out a promising roster on paper.
Last year, the Legnano Frogs stopped the Turin team from reaching the Italian Bowl, but with one of the most promising rosters in the Italian league, anything is possible.
Aquile Ferrara
After a season that ended just shy of the playoffs, Aquile Ferrara have shaken up their roster to try and secure a home championship.
There are many changes to the coaching staff, with Stefano Zucchelli, a veteran and former player of the Ferrara team, replacing John Shannon as head coach. Among others, former players Gianluca Santagostino, Diego Gennaro, and Lorenzo Vescovini, veterans of Italian football, have joined the Emilian team to lend a hand to the coaching staff.
Ryan Kraft will be the director on the field, hoping to avoid unexpected situations like last year's, when the team fielded four or five quarterbacks, while Zach Wright is the chosen one to lead the defense in the 2026 season. One of the big surprises of last season's tournament, One Williams, who was selected in last year's draft and performed so well with the Eagles, will not continue.
In the final days of preseason, the Emilia-Romagna team introduced several new Italian players, including Sidney Malan, Filippo Bilato, Tommaso Romito, and Simone Balzo, to name a few, as well as some key confirmations, such as Diego Rinaldi and Leonardo Pasquotto.
Another great signing announced 24 hours before the start of the season is Alex Ferrari, the former Giants Bolzano, Tirol Raiders and Guelfi Firenze Linebacker, who returns to the Italian Football League after some time off.
Added to these are several players who won the Coppa Italia, the Under-21 championship, earlier this year, which bodes well for the upcoming season.
Rhinos Milano
Founded as Pantere Rosa Piacenza in 1976, Rhinos Milano are approaching their 50th anniversary season with many uncertainties and doubts.
Luca Lorandi's team, confirmed as head coach of the orange-blacks this year, encountered many, many difficulties last year, especially in the second half of the season, when Jordan Bouah, returning this year as WR Coach, and Tamsir Seck, now a defensive coach for IFL2 side Reapers Torino, left to play in the ELF.
New to the sideline is Kurt Page as Offensive Coordinator. After collegiate stints at Texas A&M and West Alabama, Page's final European stint was as QB Coach with the Wroclaw Panthers.
There have also been significant changes in the import roster, with Darius Perrantes leading the offense, Josiah Cotton commanding the defense, and Nikolas Knoblauch Suppa retaining a place in the roster.
On the Italian front, the team has been strengthened with the additions of Matteo Bonzanni and Lorin Mema from the Parma Panthers, Roberto Zanovello from Varese and Mamadou Bikry Lebron Lo from his experience with the Helvetic Mercenaries, as well as Bruno Escobar, who returns to the orange and black after playing for the Tirol Raiders in the European League of Football.
Lazio Marines
Lazio Marines are also coming off a disappointing season like last year, and are preparing for the 2026 IFL with many changes.
Joe Tricario, head coach last year, will remain in Italy, but will accept the challenge of the Cagliari Crusaders, a team in the Nine Football League, the third division of Italian football. The solution for the Roman team comes at home, with American Cooper Heisey, head coach of the Under-21 team, as the new head coach of the Biancocelesti.
Seth Morgan, a former QB at Virginia Military Institute, Shepherd, and the University of New Hampshire, will direct the offense, while former Duquesne and Youngstown State LB Gianni Rizzo will be the star of the defense at the Import Player level.
There has been little, if any, news regarding any new signings of local players. Recently, the Romans have only announced a partnership with Briganti Napoli, a Third Division team last year that will not compete in any FIDAF championship in 2026, as was the case during the youth championships.
After a two-year absence, the Biancocelesti, with homegrown players of excellent potential, are aiming more than ever to reach the final stage of the championship.
Warriors Bologna
After a disappointing 2025 season, Warriors Bologna return to the Italian Football League with several new additions, starting with their head coach.
Christian Nobile, after performing excellently with the Under-18 team during the youth championships, returns to Bologna, where he also wore the blue-and-white jersey as a player, to restore a fallen noble Italian football club to its former glory.
Regarding import players, the Bologna team had signed CJ Fowler as their QB, but the day before the start of the season they have announced the arrival of Rieger Sayre, who has signed first for Skorpions Varese this year, DB Josh Stokes, also playing his first season outside the United States, joins the team, and Belgian Romain Crivellaro, coming from the Brussels Tigers and who will serve as a dual-national player.
The Warriors have also made numerous acquisitions in the local market, especially from nearby teams, such as the Modena Vipers, which unfortunately have disappeared over time. We're talking about veterans like Simone Bernardoni and Filippo Camassa, as well as established players like QB Emanuele Daino and RB Giovanni La Rocca, who returned to Emilia after his experience in Turin with Giaguari.
This year's goal, with a young roster filled with local players, is to finish the year in the playoffs, with statistics favoring the new Head Coach.
In fact, Nobile managed to reach the playoffs in his first year with a new team, as he did in Modena in 2022 and Milan with the Rhinos in 2023. Will he succeed in this feat as well?
The Italian Football League, after its second final in Toledo, returns home for this year's Italian Bowl.
The Paolo Mazza Stadium in Ferrara will host the finale of the 2026 IFL, just as it did in 2013-2014, when the Parma Panthers and Milan Seamen battled for the title.
In 2013, the Black-and-Silver Panthers claimed the title, winning 51-28 with Running Back Alessandro Malpeli Avalli named MVP. The following year, the Milanese team won their first of five national titles, defeating the Parma Panthers 33-3 with RB Mattia Binda named MVP.
This will be the fourth final in six years in Emilia-Romagna. Since the IFL returned from its forced COVID hiatus, when the 2020 season was canceled, the finals have been held in Emilia (Piacenza 2021, Bologna 2022, Ravenna 2024) or in the United States, in Toledo, Ohio, in 2023 and 2025.
The July 4th event will take place during the Italian Bowl Weekend, which will see all the Senior finals (IFL, IFL2, and 9FL) played in the same location on the same weekend.
There were numerous changes to the league structure during the preseason, primarily the number of teams on the field, which was significantly reduced to nine due to the withdrawals of three teams.
The Bergamo Lions, defeated in the relegation play-off against the Savona/Albisola Superiore Pirates, initially decided to accept the outcome of the play-off and were relegated to IFL2. However, they later announced that they would not participate in any championship in 2026 due to internal team issues.
The same applies to the Pirates, who have decided to restart from the Second Division in 2026 so they can quickly return to the top level.
The third and final exclusion came less than a week before the start of the season. The Varese Skorpions, who qualified for the playoffs last year and reached the semifinals twice in their three years in the IFL, have decided to withdraw from the league due to last-minute withdrawals that prevented them from fielding a competitive team for the upcoming season.
For both Lombardy teams, this isn't a farewell, but a goodbye, with the hope of seeing them back on the field soon.
With the schedule already set, all teams that were scheduled to face the Skorpions this year will now have an additional Bye Week.
Furthermore, there were no promotions from the Italian Football League 2. The Catania Elephants, last year's Silver Bowl winner and the southernmost team in the tournament, have decided not to advance to a division this year.
Another development concerns the league's management. FIDAF has ceded the rights to the First Division championship to the IFL Alliance, which is managed by the nine teams that make up the tournament.
The Italian Football League thus returns to private management, as it did from 2008 to 2016, the league's inception.
Another factor to keep an eye on will be the absence of many of the Italian league's stars, such as Luke Zahradka, Jordan Bouah, Andrea Fantin, and Simone Alinovi, to name a few, as they have joined the FIDAF project related to the road to the Los Angeles Olympics, scheduled for a couple of years.
The men's national flag football team thus becomes a club that will participate in various tournaments in preparation for this August's event, where the Azzurri, both men's and women's, will begin their journey towards the next Summer Olympics. This will be the first time this discipline has been included in the program, meaning those who are part of this team will not be able to play in their Tackle counterpart.
This will also be a factor to keep in mind ahead of the next European Tackle Championship, which will see Italy play against Poland and Hungary in October.
The two national teams qualified for the World Cup in Dusseldorf thanks to their placings at the 2025 European Championship held in Paris, where the Azzurri beat Austria in the final and the women's Blue Team qualified by beating Ukraine in the play-off for the last available spot.
IFL Draft 2025
Like last year, FIDAF and the Italian Football League, in collaboration with the Rome City Institute, held a draft for student-athletes.
The players selected, mostly from the United States, will be part of the IFL rosters, but will not occupy Import Player spots and will be treated, under the rules, as Italian players.
Many of the players selected were also on the rosters of teams in the Italian top league last year, while others are playing overseas for the first time.
Last year's record served, as in the NFL, to establish the draft order.
IFL Draft 2025 – Round 1
Warriors Bologna – Grant Daniels (DL, Vicksburg High School, Michigan)
Lazio Marines – Garrett Wilson (WR, Grinnell College, Iowa, NCAA Div.III)
Aquile Ferrara – Logan Hansen (OL/DL, Pirates Albisola, IFL 2025)
Rhinos Milano – Andrew Priore (DB, Union College, New York, NCAA Div.III)
Giaguari Torino – Gavin Thomas (DL, St.Francis University, Pennsylvania, NCAA Div.I FCS)
Skorpions Varese–Tarrin Haws(OL/DL, Evanston High School, Wyoming)Panthers Parma – Samuel Thornhill (LB/RB, Rock Springs High School, Wyoming)
Frogs Legnano – Mikey Hunt Jr. (DB, IMG Academy, Florida)
Dolphins Ancona – Parker Richardson (DB/LB, Dolphins Ancona, IFL 2025)
Guelfi Firenze – Terry Davis (LB, Lakeland High School, Idaho)
IFL Draft 2025 – Round 2
Warriors Bologna – Caleb Berry (RB/WR, California Lutheran University, California, NCAA Div.III)
Lazio Marines – Patrick Ohanesyan (DL, Sioux Falls Lincoln High School, South Dakota)
Aquile Ferrara – Isaiah Dunn (WR, Lazio Marines, IFL 2025)
Giaguari Torino – Austin Hosier (K/WR, Arkansas Tech, Arkansas, NCAA Div.II)
Skorpions Varese–George Perry III(LB, North Penn High School, Pennsylvania)Frogs Legnano – Will Redd (LB, Frogs Legnano, IFL 2025)
Dolphins Ancona – Jadiel Perez (RB, Scotch Plains-Fanwood High School, New Jersey)
The championship will begin on February 28th, with a collective Bye Week for the Easter holidays (April 4th-5th), while its Regular Season will conclude on May 30th-31st after 13 matchdays.
The playoffs, featuring the top six teams in the tournament, will begin on June 13th-14th with the Wild Card Round (3rd vs. 6th and 4th vs. 5th). The winners will challenge the top two teams in the standings in the semifinals scheduled for the following week.
The final event, as previously mentioned, will be the weekend of July 3rd-4th in Ferrara for the XLV Italian Bowl.
First Down Magazine, for the first time this year, will be the federation's official media partner and will therefore closely follow all the events surrounding the IFL and its surrounding areas with extensive content as the season progresses.