The Great Italian Player Thread [Post-1990]

[Cassano]

Eugenio Corini will be done over the course of the next few days...

[Cassano]

Eugenio Corini

Here's an interesting photo: Corini tries to contain Diego Maradona while playing for Juventus
http://web.neomedia.it/vnatalin/anjoik/corini/corinimaradona.jpg

http://web.neomedia.it/vnatalin/anjoik/corini/chipercorini2.jpg

Eugenio Corini was born on July 30, 1970 in the town on Bagnolo Mella, near Brescia. He is a midfielder and is a free-kick and penalty kick specialist. He has a really powerful shot and can launch rockets from 30 yards out. He was scouted and made a part of the Brescia Primavera squad. At 16 years of age he was a part of the Brescia first team for the 1986/87 season, but didn't play one game. Brescia were relegated to Serie B. The next season he started to make his impact and played in 14 games. As an 18 year old he became a regular in the 88/89 season and played 29 games for the club from the Lombardy region. In 89/90, he played 34 games and scored 9 goals, enough to get recognized by Serie A giants Juventus. He made the move to Juventus in the summer of 1990 and played 25 games the following season, scoring 1 goal, pretty good for a 20-year old. He was also a big part of the Under-21 side of the early 90's, and was an influential member of the European championship winning squad. Despite his U-21 successes, he never made one appearance for the full National team. He played another 22 games for Juve the following year, scoring 1 goal, but was then sold to Sampdoria for the 93/93 season. He scored 4 goals in 24 games for the Bluecerchiati, but had injury problems. He was sold off again to Napoli, and only played 14 games, scoring no goals. In November of 1994, hometown club Brescia took him back, and he played in 24 games and scored 2 goals. He was again offloaded and brought to Piacenza, where he played 32 games and scored 1 goal. He was then given to Hellas Verona, who were relegated and played in Serie B. He stayed on until October 1998, when Hellas loaned him to cross-town rivals Chievo Verona. He became captain at Chievo and in 2000/2001, Chievo acheived the unthinkable. Led by young striker Bernardo Corradi, and midfielders Eriberto (now Luciano), Corini, and Manfredini, they finished atop Serie B and were promoted for the first time ever. They were always seen as the losing team of Verona and finally broke the curse. Not only that, they played great in Serie A, and were in first place at the Winter break. But after the break, they started to slip, and wound up finishing 5th. They also finished midtable the following year. In November 2002, Trapattoni called up Corini for a friendly game, but Corini could not make his appearance because of a thigh strain. In 2003/2004, he was dealt to Serie B team Palermo, who expected to be promoted. Corini, as captain, played 40 games and scored 12 goals, having the best season of his career. They finished on top of the Serie B standings and were promoted to Serie A for the first time in over 30 years. Corini is still on Palermo and is anchoring the Palermo midfield. They are on course to qualify for European competition for the first time in their history.

[Italia4life]

You Guys Roberto Baggio Ha he was good the GreaTEST Paolo Rossi The Golden Boy if it wasn't for him we would only have 2 worldcups and how about Dino Zoff greatest goalkeeper ever

[Cassano]

Here is Andrea Fortunato:

http://digilander.libero.it/mirkodeli/Giocatori/Tabellini/Image/FortunatoA.jpg

Andrea Fortunato was born on July 26, 1971 in the city of Salerno, which is an hour away from Napoli and most famously known for the Allied landing there during World War II. He played left-back, and was a natural. He did not play with hometown team Salernitana, but started up north, with AC Como. He started there as a 17 year old, and the 1988/89 season was his first. He spent 3 seasons at Como, making 27 appearances in Serie C1 and 16 in Serie B. After that he was bought by Serie A club Genoa, but put on loan for the 91/92 season to Pisa. He impressed in his 25 appearances in Serie B, and Genoa took him back for the 92/93 season. He, along with Christian Pannuci, became revelations at the back for Genoa, and was impressing many big clubs. He played 33 games in the top-flight and scored 3 goals. It wasn't bad for a player in his first season of Serie A. He was an all-around left-back. He defended solidly, ran up and down the left flank, crossed in balls for the forwards, and even went up for the odd header off of set pieces. He was being compared to Paolo Maldini. After the season, he was snapped up by giants Juventus, while Pannuci made the move to AC Milan. He was given his first and only National team cap when he played against Estonia on September 22nd. He impressed coach Arrigo Sacchi alot. Many were tipping Fortunato to be the next great Italian defender. At 23 years of age, he was in Juve's starting 11 and wore Antonio Cabrini's famous #3 jersey, he was soon to be a National team regular, and his attractive looks had all the girls of Italy falling for him. Everything was going right for young Andrea. Everything was good until mid-season. He started to not feel well and went to the doctor. After various medical tests, the doctor announced the verdict. Andrea was diagnosed with leukemia. He stopped playing and started his first therapy in Torino. He was then transferred to Perugia for a bone marrow transplant. Everything looked to be going on course until one morning he woke up with a case of bronchitis. The bronchitis killed his weak immune system and Andrea Fortunato was pronounced dead. The Azzurri players received the news right before their match with Lithiuania in Vilnius. A moment of silence was observed in his memory. His funeral was celebrated on the 26th of April in Salerno. Teammates, coaches, relatives, and anyone else who wanted to pay their respects were there. A few weeks after that, Juventus won their 23rd Scudetto. It was dedicated to Andrea. Who knows how great of a player Andrea Fortunato could've been. He could've been the next Paolo Maldini. But it's something we will never find out.

[Duck Manson]

thanks man :) Fortunato was definitely special.

[Cassano]

Antonio Conte

http://www.gazzetta.it/Foto%20Hermes/2004/05-Maggio/27/conte--310x210.jpg
Antonio Conte was born on July 31, 1969 in the southern town of Lecce, which is in the region of Puglia, where Bari also lies. He was a strong defensive midfielder throughout his career and was known for his excellent crossing and volleying ability. Most of his goals were scored in spectacular fashion. Antonio was a promising footballer growing up and was spotted playing in the streets by Lecce scouts. He was part of their youth academy and at 17 years old made 2 appearances for the first team in the 1985/86 season. Lecce were relegated. He didn't appear the following season, and only made 3 appearances the season after that. Despite not playing, Lecce were promoted, and in the 1988/89 season, Conte finally started to make his impact. He made 19 appearances that season and 28 the following season, scoring his first Serie A goal. The following season was when he started to get noticed. He again made 28 appearances and at the end of the season Juventus bought young Conte. In his first season at Juve, he only made 14 appearances and didn't play a prominent role. It wasn't until the 92/93 season that Conte started to make a mark. He was an ironman for Juve in the 92/93 season, making 31 appearances and scoring 2 goals. The following season was even better. He made 32 appearances and scored 4 goals. For his efforts, Arrigo Sacchi gave him his first cap in a friendly against Finland in Parma on May 27, 2004. Playing well, Sacchi decided to bring him to the USA for World Cup '94. He made 2 appearances at the World Cup, in the quarterfinal against Spain and in the Semi-final against Bulgaria. He played in the qualifiers for Euro'96 and World Cup '98, but was not brought to either torunament. Over the next 6 seasons, he made 123 appearances for Juve, acting as captain in many of them, and scoring 18 goals. He spent the 97-98 season injured, which is partly the reason he could not go to France for the World Cup. Dino Zoff brought him to Euro 2000, and it payed off. In Italy's first game against Turkey, Inzaghi played a bouncing ball across the box. Conte was on the penalty spot and the ball bounced just above his body. He threw his body in the air and performed a spectacular bicycle kick that put Italy in the lead. Italy won 2-1. He was an influential member of the squad and played until the quarter-final, where Gheorge Hagi of Romania stepped on his foot, injuring Conte for the rest of the tournament. That was his last international cap. He had 20 caps and 2 goals. After Euro 2000, Conte was starting to get old and did not feature as much for Juve anymore. He stilled played and came on as sub often. In 2002/2003, Juve reached the Champion's League final. They faced AC Milan. Conte was put on at half-time and immediately an impact. A cross was directed at the top of the box, and Conte performed a ferocious diving header, which rattled the crossbar, leaving Dida helpless. He could've given Juve the lead, but they lost on penalties. After 2003/2004 season, where he only made 16 appearances, he announced his retirement. Hometown club Lecce tried to lure him to play for them, but he refused. He finished his career with 1 Champion's League, 1 UEFA Cup, 5 Scudetti, 2 Italian supercups, and 1 Coppa Italia.

[Cassano]

Up next:

Gianfranco Matteoli
Pietro Paolo Virdis
Nicola Berti

[dor02]

Here is the Silver Fox, Fabrizio Ravanelli:
http://www.forza-juventus.com/images/Ravanelli.jpg
“White Feather”, "Silver Fox", "Penna Bianca": These are all nicknames for the great Fabrizio Ravanelli. All these nicknames derive from his grey hair, from which he had since a teenager. He is also famous for his shirt over the head celebration. Sometimes sponsors paid him to wear their t-shirts and show the sponsor's name when he scored. He started small in Itay. He started playing with his hometown club Perugia and then went to Avellino, Casertana and Reggiana. Then he went from Reggiana, who were in Serie B, to Juventus. Many talked about how a great club would pick up a Serie B player. Ravanelli was a powerful, robust, and talented forward. The 94-95 season at Juve was memorable and was Lippi's debut. Juve had a ferocious attacking pair of Vialli-Ravanelli with Roberto Baggio supporting or the emerging talent Del Piero. He scored the go-ahead goal against Ajax in the 1996 Champion's League final, which Juve won in PK's. He was loved by Juve's fans but was a little hot-tempered. He felt betrayed when he was sold to Middlesborough, expecting the captain's armband from Juve after the departure of Vialli. He debutted for Boro with a hat-trick against Liverpool, a Premiership record. He helped them to win the European Cup that year. He is then sold to Marseille. He helps Marseille to first place, but many referee scandals occurred at the time. Also, he is a big part of Italy's World Cup qualifying campaign for France '98. But like Zola, he is also cut from Maldini's '98 squad. After a three year absence, he returns to Italy in December 1999 with Lazio. He helps Lazio to the Scudetto that year, but leaves for Derby County. He spends a couple of seasons there, then moves to Scotland with Dundee. Dundee goes into administration and he offers to get a pay cut, but it doesn't help. Last season, Perugia, desperate for a star player after the departure of Miccoli, bring Ravanelli back to his hometown. His objective is to lead Perugia away from the relegation zone. He leads valiantly, leading Perugia out of the automatic relegation spots, finishing in a play-off spot. Perugia had to play 6th place Serie B side Fiorentina and win to stay in Serie A. A loss would mean Serie B, and Fiorentina going to Serie A. Fiorentina won the playoff 2-1 on aggregate, and Perugia dropped down to B. He is currently still playing with Perugia.

If it wasn't for Ravanelli, soccer/football wouldn't have got my attention very quickly. I loved his celebrations, the ones were he lifted his shirt over his head.

He got sick just before France 98 started and that's why Enrico Chiesa was placed in the Squadra Azzurra.

Cassano Future of Italy, this is the greatest thread ever! This is what you call grande qualita'.

[dor02]

Dino Baggio's goal against Spain at USA 94 was one of the greatest goals that I've seen Italy score at a World Cup. A great player indeed.

I don't know what you guys think but I reckon Nicola Berti was one of the worst players I've seen playing for the Azzurri. I've watched highlights of him playing at Italia 90 and USA 94 and he was someone that really got on my nerves.

[dor02]

Roberto "Mancio" Mancini:
http://norfox.net/guysin2.jpg
Mancini wins his and Lazio's second Scudetto ('99/'00), 2 Coppe Italia ('97/'98 and '99/'00) the Cup-Winner's Cup, the Italian Supercup ('98/'99) and the European Supercup ('99/'00). Lazio have never won so much. His last day as a Serie A player was on the day Lazio won the Scudetto. Despite such a successful club career, the success never translated into the National team.
He made his debut in May 1984 in Canada for a friendly. Italy was still coached by Enzo Bearzot. He plays in Euro '88 and is called to World Cup 1990, but never played.
His last game for the Azzurri is in a friendly against Germany in March 1994.
He has a poor Azzurri record, 36 appearances and 4 goals. Although, he was Runner-up in the 1986 U-21 tournament.



I only started to see him play when he was playing for Lazio and even at that age I thought he was a very good player.

Unfortunately he is one of those players that didn't get enough playing time with the Azzurri. At Italia 90 he would have been very useful because Vialli was struggling with injury, Carnevale was a shocker, Serena wasn't as good as Mancini and Baggio sadly was another player that wasn't given enough time. Despite Schillaci's performances, it would have been great if he had a regular striking partner to back him up.

[dor02]

Pierluigi Casiraghi

http://digilander.libero.it/mirkodeli/Giocatori/Tabellini/Image/Casiraghi.jpg
Pierluigi Casiraghi was born in Monza on March 4, 1969. He refused many offers from big Italian teams for him to join their youth teams and decided to stay with Monza. He debuted for Monza in Serie B in the 85-86 season and scored 1 goal in 12 appearances. The next two seasons Monza played in Serie C1, and he amassed 18 goals in 55 appearances. They were promoted and in 88-89 he scored 9 goals in 29 games and was noticed by Italian giants Juventus. He was sold to Juventus and scored 4 goals in 23 appearances in his first season. He was nicknamed "The Little Bison" because he was small yet very strong and powerful. His headers were very powerful. He never really took off at Juve, only scoring 16 goals in the next three seasons. He was sold off to Lazio for the 93-94 campaign and paired up with Beppe Signori. He was involved in World Cup 1994 qualifying and his 4 goals in 26 appearances was enough to get him to WC 1994, except he never played a minute. The next 2 seasons were probably his best, he scored 12 goals the following season and played in every game. In 95-96 he scored 14 in 26 games. He played in Euro '96 that summer, but Italy were eliminated in the group stages. His last season at Lazio was 97-98, and then Italy coach Cesare Maldini favored the strike pair of Vieri-Casiraghi for qualifying. He scored against Russia to get Italy to France, but was not included, like many others, for the final Tournament squad. After 97-98 he was sold to Chelsea, following in the footsteps of other Italians like Vialli and Zola. He played 10 games but in his 10th game was seriously injured. He was ruled out for the season and has several operations. The injury ended his career and was forced to retire.

Isn't he coaching Monza now?

[dor02]

http://www.planetworldcup.com/CUPS/1990/WC90_047.jpg
Salvatore Schillaci seemingly came from nowhere. But the 1990 World Cup made Salvatore ‘Toto’ Schillaci a world star. His six goals in the tournament saw him net the Golden Boot and become Italy’s overnight scoring sensation, leaving the more acclaimed Gianluca Vialli in the shadows.
The first game Italy played was against Austria. Italy coach Azeglio Vicini did not know his strike pair until 10 minutes before the game. He chose a Vialli-Carnevale tandem. Gianluca Vialli was being tipped to be Italy's star player in the tournament, but Toto took that away. Carnevale played with Napoli and Vicini decide to give him a go. The score was 0-0. Italy backup keeper Stefano Tacconi was sitting next to Toto on the bench and told him, "You're going to go in a score on a header." Surely enough, Schillaci was brought on for Carnevale and on a cross by Giuseppe Giannini, he rose up between two defenders and headed the ball in the net. Italy won 1-0.

Actually it was Vialli who supplied the cross.

Is there any chance that you will do Luigi De Agostini or is he more of a 1980s player?

[dor02]

I was wondering why there haven't been any pictures of the former Sampdoria players during their days with Sampdoria? If you can find some Cassano Future of Italy or anybody else. Thank you.

Cassano, can you do one on both Giancarlo Marocchi and Ancelotti? I'm not sure about Ancelotti because he played most of his career in the 80s. All I know about Marocchi is that he was born on the 4th July 1965, played for Juve in their 1990 and 1993 UEFA Cup wins and he was selected for the Italian team at Italia 90 but he didn't play a match.

Giannini crossed for Schillaci in the match against Czechoslovakia, the match when Baggio scored that wondergoal.

[sardus_pater]

I only started to see him play when he was playing for Lazio and even at that age I thought he was a very good player.

Unfortunately he is one of those players that didn't get enough playing time with the Azzurri. At Italia 90 he would have been very useful because Vialli was struggling with injury, Carnevale was a shocker, Serena wasn't as good as Mancini and Baggio sadly was another player that wasn't given enough time. Despite Schillaci's performances, it would have been great if he had a regular striking partner to back him up.

He was as much talented as roby baggio (different qualities but still). This gives you an idea of how much he was good.
When he was at Lazio he was already a player at the end of his career. Still good though.
When he played for Samp he was fantastic. Too bad he didn't manage to play at the same level in the NT. Lots of bad luck and quality competition, I guess.
The same can be said for Zola.

[dor02]

He was as much talented as roby baggio (different qualities but still). This gives you an idea of how much he was good.
When he was at Lazio he was already a player at the end of his career. Still good though.
When he played for Samp he was fantastic. Too bad he didn't manage to play at the same level in the NT. Lots of bad luck and quality competition, I guess.
The same can be said for Zola.

Sadly for us, Zola and Mancini weren't the only ones. There were more who were like those two.

Thanks to this thread, it has made me realise how much depth Italy has and because of that, the fact that the Azzurri haven't brought home the World Cup since 1982 is hard to believe.

[Cassano]

Cassano, can you do one on both Giancarlo Marocchi and Ancelotti? .

I was thinking of doing Marocchi. He had a long career with Juve and then finished his career off with Bologna. He is now assistant coach at Bologna. It's a possibility. I don't know about Ancelotti though, because he played most of his career in the 80's.

I was wondering why there haven't been any pictures of the former Sampdoria players during their days with Sampdoria? If you can find some Cassano Future of Italy or anybody else. Thank you.



Here's one of Vialli and Mancini:
http://www.kumapino.it/gemelli_del_gol.jpg

Celebrating the Cup-Winner's Cup Win:
http://www.kumapino.it/sampdoro.jpg

[dor02]

I was thinking of doing Marocchi. He had a long career with Juve and then finished his career off with Bologna. He is now assistant coach at Bologna. It's a possibility. I don't know about Ancelotti though, because he played most of his career in the 80's.



Here's one of Vialli and Mancini:
http://www.kumapino.it/gemelli_del_gol.jpg

Celebrating the Cup-Winner's Cup Win:
http://www.kumapino.it/sampdoro.jpg

Great pictures! Thanks Cassano!

[When Hell Unfreezes]

You should go back further, there are too many great names from my era missing, just for example, Zoff, Gaetano Scirea, Rossi, Tardelli & Claudio Gentile - nice thread though :)

[dor02]

You should go back further, there are too many great names from my era missing, just for example, Zoff, Gaetano Scirea, Rossi, Tardelli & Claudio Gentile - nice thread though :)

Cassano was doing profiles of players who were famous since 1990.

Cassano, are there going to be anymore profiles or have you finished with them? Just wondering.

[dor02]

Too bad he didn't manage to play at the same level in the NT.

I forgot to mention that Mancini played at Euro 88 and he scored Italy's goal against the West Germans.