I was reading an article in a paper today - which was broadly brought on by Camoranesi's imminent debut for Italy - and apparently, in between the South American-born players who've put on the blue shirt, there's also been a Swiss, and American, and a Scotsman.....can anyone fill me on on who they were?
The Swiss was Roberto DeMatteo (95% sure). Christian Vieri might have been born in Australia - he definitely spent a large number of years there. I believe his dad was a pro there.
36 foreign born players have played for Italy. Here are a few... Swiss - Roberto Di Matteo Argetina - Omar Sivori, Mauro Camoranesi, Raimundo Orsi, Luis Monti (both Argentine born members of the 1934 Italian World Cup winning side), Jose Altafini, and Juan Schiffiano Vieri was born in Bologna, but moved to Australia.
Di Matteo was born in Switzerland? I did not know that..... thanks for the replies guys. Any idea on who the Scot was? Try as I might, I can't quite picture it - it just doesn't fit
Scottish Italian not sure who the Scottish born Italian international was but I'm pretty sure Dominic Matteo was eligible to play for them
Altafini is brasilian. If I remember well he did play also for Brazil in some championship. He was the substitute of a guy called Pelè. In Brazil he was known as "Mazzola" because of his italian origins and in memory of the "Grande Torino" player Mazzola (father of Sandro). He was a well known player dead with most of the Torino team in a plane crash.