We analyze a three-state Potts model built over a ring, with coupling J0, and the fully connected graph, with coupling J. This model is an effective mean-field and can be solved exactly by using transfer-matrix method and Cardano formula. When J and J0 are both positive, the model has a first-order phase transition which turns out to be a smooth modification of the known phase transition of the traditional mean-field Potts model (J > 0 and J0 = 0), despite the connected correlation functions are now non zero. However, when J is positive and J0 negative, besides the first-order transition, there appears also a hidden (non stable) continuous transition. When J is negative the model does not own a phase transition but, interestingly, the dynamics induced by the mean-field equations leads to stable orbits of period 2 with a second-order phase transition and with the classical critical exponent β = 1/2, like in the Ising model.