New MacLeod Pitch Cover System for Virtus Entella\’s Training Ground

Sports & Stadia has completed the installation and commissioning of a MacLeod System at the training facility of Virtus Entella, the Serie B club based in Chiavari on Italy’s Ligurian coast.

It is the latest step in the MacLeod System’s move into mainland Europe. It demonstrates the breadth of the MacLeod System’s capabilities and the range of pitch management needs it can support.

The MacLeod System supports a wide range of pitch protection needs across stadiums and training grounds. This project protects a professional training surface that takes daily use and has to be ready for the football department every day of the week.

A stadium pitch and a training pitch face different pressures. A stadium surface is usually protected towards a fixed date, such as a matchday, a tournament or a showpiece event. A training pitch has no single target date. It is in use most days, often for several sessions, and its condition affects the team’s preparation for every match of the season.

That changes what groundcrew need from a pitch cover. The question is less “will the surface be ready on Saturday?” and more “how do we keep this surface usable all week, whatever the weather does?”

At Virtus Entella, two pressures combine. The first is significant rainfall. The Ligurian coast is known for intense rain, particularly through autumn, and heavy spells can put a surface out of use when it is most needed. The second is repeated foot traffic. Training pitches take sustained, concentrated wear, and a saturated surface is far more vulnerable to damage under that traffic than a dry one.

Together, these leave grounds crew balancing two competing priorities. They need to preserve the integrity of the playing surface, and they need to keep the football training schedule running. Resting a waterlogged pitch protects the surface but costs training time. Training on it keeps the schedule but risks lasting damage.

The MacLeod System proactively manages rainfall through its raised, apex-shaped structure. It directs water towards the perimeter rather than allowing it to pool on the playing surface or accumulate in the low-lying areas most susceptible to waterlogging.

Because the structure sheds water as it falls, rain doesn’t collect on top of the cover and doesn’t reach the surface underneath. The pitch stays protected through the wet spell and is in a far better condition to be used once the system comes off.

Protection only helps a training ground if it can come off quickly when the team needs the pitch. Virtus Entella have also invested in Sports & Stadia’s Air Rollers. These are inflatable deployment tools that make handling the cover faster and easier; they are not a cover in themselves.

With the Air Rollers, the club’s grounds crew can remove the MacLeod Pitch Cover System independently in under an hour. They don’t need to wait on outside help or give up a session. The system can go on when rain is forecast and come off in time for training, which gives the grounds crew flexibility around the club’s schedule rather than working against it.

The MacLeod System is now working in very different conditions across Europe. In Iceland, the focus has been on protecting playing surfaces against freezing temperatures and snowfall, working alongside existing technologies such as undersoil heating. In Chiavari, the job is managing rainfall and protecting a surface under constant training use.

These are two different climates, two different types of facility and two different problems, handled by the same system.

For a professional club, the value of protecting a training pitch goes beyond the grass itself. Training schedules are carefully planned around the fixture calendar, and unexpected disruption has knock-on effects for the team’s preparation. A pitch that can be protected through heavy rain and cleared quickly afterwards keeps the training plan intact.

This is why training facilities are a growing application for the MacLeod System, particularly for clubs in regions where rainfall rather than frost is the main threat to the surface.

We’re looking forward to seeing the Macleod Pitch Cover system used in more professional training environments across mainland Europe.

Sports & Stadia would like to thank Luigi, Michele and the whole team at Virtus Entella for their collaboration and hospitality throughout the installation and commissioning process.