Coach Gianni De Biasi: Has led the club up from Serie C1. (Pics/Empics)

Only a few disbelieving Italians, who'd perhaps been too busy scratching graffiti to notice, would now not know the answer: in Serie A. And doing well, thank you very much, with 15 points from nine games, three away and two home wins, no draws.

While lacking the pluckiness and counter-cultural appeal of fellow blue-and-yellow paupers Chievo - but only because there's only so much patronising you can do in Serie A, and besides, they are a year too late - Modena have perhaps been as much a surprise as the Verona team were last season.

In the truest possible underdog fashion, Modena were a Serie C1 team only two years ago, and in the news for the wrong reasons, when one of their players nearly died after being punched by an opponent outside the dressing room following a game at Como.

Current coach Gianni De Biasi took control ten games into the 1999-2000 and began molding the team in his footballing philosophy, which has so far proved to be a very successful one: nine players who were part of the 46-year old De Biasi's team which won promotion from the Serie C1 in the 2000-01 season are still with the club.

Five of them are still regular or part-time starters, which in Italy is as rare as any coach actually admitting his team lost a game deservedly and not because of obscure machinations by men in shades and white coats (or black jerseys and shorts and a whistle between their lips, as it is).

At the start of the season, only three players, among them well-travelled keeper Marco Ballotta, had had any Serie A experience, compared with the six players from last year's Chievo squad, making Modena's great start even more remarkable. Opening day jitters were clearly evident in the 0-3 home defeat by AC Milan but were quickly put aside the following week, when on a Sunday night game shown live on cable tv Modena beat AS Roma 2-1 at the Olimpico.

And this kind of away form was again on show last Wednesday in the rescheduled first round of matches, when Modena scored three goals and won at Atalanta then, on Sunday won at Reggina with a 79-minute goal by midfielder Rubens Pasino.

The most memorable Modena goal at Atalanta was scored with an outrageous backheel by French-Senegalese forward Diomansy Kamara, 22, whose registraton is held jointly by Modena and Chievo, and who was first brought to Italy from French second division side Red Star. Kamara is rumoured to be on less than 50,000 euros a year, one of the lowest wages in the whole of the Serie A.

The 'Canarini' (canaries, for their yellow jersey, obviously) play a 3-5-2 (or 3-4-1-2) formation which has been their staple since the early De Biasi days, and remains successful regardless of who plays where.

Central midfielder Omar Milanetto, 27, is the anchor of the side, flanked in most games by creative 31-year old playmaker Marcello Albino and talented but inconsistent 22 year old Stefano Mauri, who has been likened to a younger and still incomplete (of course) version of Pavel Nedved.

	Modena's players take a bow after a famous victory over Roma. (Pic/GettyImages)

Up front, along with Kamara, Giuseppe Sculli, 21, has been a revelation in front of goal, though his production had dropped off a little lately and his glaring close-range misses in the game against Juventus, who own his rights, sparked a controversy highlighted by AS Roma coach Fabio Capello.

Modena do not score many goals (ten in nine games, three of them in the win at Atalanta), but their defence has been solid, anchored by business-like central defender Roberto Cevoli.

Their playing style is not particularly entertaining or fluid, wide players are usually not inventive types but defensive-minded veterans like Jacopo Balestri on the left and hard-working fan favourite Paolo Ponzo on the right.

De Biasi wants his team to leave little room between units, with midfielders ready to win the ball and rapidly support the forwards on the break, but this safety-first approach can have its drawbacks, as against Juventus, when the strikers were cut off from the rest of the team by the Bianconeri's clever midfield.

But as De Biasi points out, it's not by games against Juventus or Milan that Modena must be judged: his approach, that 25 more points are needed to stave off relegation rather than gain access to the UEFA or Intertoto Cup as some overconfident fans have been saying, is the right one for a team who may encounter a lean patch later this season, when other coaches will have caught up with their tactics.

But what has happened so far has been so much above expectations that Modena can rightly be termed as the Serie A's surprise club.

And while Serie A may be increasingly torn by controversies and shameful invectives between clubs, officials and referees still has cause for celebration, as all four of its teams went through to the second phase of the competition-formerly-known-as-the-European Cup.

Perhaps a look at Modena's success this season is a even better indicator that not all Serie A teams have to spend millions to be competitive, and for every the Gallianis, Moggis and Morattis squawking and tearing their hair out (well, perhaps not, in Galliani's case...) at each perceived wrongdoing there's a club president, Modena's Romano Amadei, who has hardly shown his face on television.

	Ferrari F1: The local sport, now conceding column inches to the local football team. (Pic/GettyImages)

While Modena is not exactly an oasis of peace and bliss (Juventus' top brass were showered with insults - 'cheats' the most benign one - and coins following Alessandro Del Piero's controversial goal which gave the bianconeri a 1-0 three weeks ago), the whole city, a typically quiet Padan town famous for being a 25-minute drive to the legendary Ferrari car-making factory in Maranello - not vice-versa, apparently - has been following the Canarini's first Serie A season since 1963-64 with a passion and a kind of 'don't pinch me I'm dreaming' attitude.

For the time being, this has been very enjoyable for outsiders (with the exception, perhaps, of Bologna, with which the local rivalry will be renewed in a few weeks' time).

And for those of us who prefer supporting actual human beings to flashy metallic silhouettes with wheels, anything that takes the ever-present and slightly annoying Ferrari banners out of balconies and cars on Sunday evening is welcome.