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Alessandro Del Piero

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Alessandro Del Piero
Personal information
Full name Alessandro Del Piero
Height 1.73 m (5 ft 8 in)[1]
Position(s) Second striker
Team information
Current team
 Juventus
Number 10
‡ National team caps and goals, correct as of June 22 2008

Alessandro Del Piero, Cavaliere Ufficiale OMRI[2][3] (born November 9, 1974 in Conegliano Veneto) is an Italian World Cup-winning footballer. He is the captain of Juventus where he holds several club records and he is a member of the Italian national team.

His footballing ability is highly regarded and he has won critical recognition. Pelé named Del Piero in the FIFA 100, a list of the 125 greatest living footballers selected by Pelé as a part of FIFA's centenary celebrations. He was also voted in the list of best European players for the past 50 years in the UEFA Golden Jubilee Poll. In the year 2000 Del Piero was the world's best-paid football player from salary, bonuses and advertising revenue.[4] Currently, Del Piero is still the highest earning Italian Player.[5]

As well as earning respect for his playing, Del Piero has won several accolades for his character. Along with three awards in Italy for gentlemanly conduct[6][7] he has also won the Golden Foot award, which pertains to personality and playing ability.[8]

Usually, Del Piero plays as a supporting-striker and occasionally between the midfield and the strikers, known in Italy as the "Trequartista" position. Although he is not very tall, Del Piero's playing style is regarded by critics as creative in attacking, assisting many goals as well as scoring himself, as opposed to just "goal poaching."[9] His free-kick and penalty taking is also highly regarded.[10] Del Piero has become famous over the years for scoring from a special " Del Piero Zone", approaching from the left flank and curling a precise lob into the far top corner of the goal.[11]

In terms of goalscoring, Del Piero holds the all-time record at Juventus.[12] On April 6th, 2008, Alessandro Del Piero became the all-time highest-capped Juventus player, ahead of Juve legend Gaetano Scirea. He is in sixth place in the UEFA Champions League all-time goalscorer records.[13] Within the Italian national team, he is currently joint fourth with Roberto Baggio in the all-time scoring records.

Childhood and early career

Del Piero is the son of Gino, an electrician, and Bruna, a housekeeper. He regularly played football in the backyard with three friends, Nelso, Pierpaolo, and Giovanni-Paolo as a child. All four dreamed of becoming footballers, but only Del Piero would eventually manage to do so.[14] Alessandro's older brother, Stefano, briefly played professional football for Sampdoria before injury struck him. The family lived in the hamlet of Saccon - a rural home in San Vendemiano. While growing up Del Piero's family didn't have much money for travelling abroad, so he was considering being a lorry driver in order to see the world.[15]

While playing for the local youth team of AC San Vendemiano from the age of 7,[16] Del Piero used to play as a goalkeeper because he could play a lot more football that way. His mother thought it would be better for him if he played as a goalkeeper, since he wouldn't sweat and the possibility of him getting injured was less likely. His brother Stefano told their mother: "Don't you see that Alex is good in the attack?" and Del Piero switched position.[17]

It was while playing with his local side of AC San Vendemiano in 1988 that Del Piero was first spotted by scouts — he left home at the young age of 13 to play in the youth side of Padova Calcio. He got his first chance at professional football in 1991 where he played in the Italian Serie B league four times. The following season he played ten games for Padova and scored his first professional goal.

Juventus

In 1993, he transferred to Juventus F.C., and has been there ever since. Del Piero made his Serie A debut against Foggia in September 1993, scored his first goal in his next game against Reggiana after appearing as a substitute, and then grabbed a hat-trick against Parma on his first start. Juventus claimed their first Scudetto in eight years in his first season and success continued to follow. With the Turin club, he won the Serie A championship seven times (1995, 1997, 1998, 2002, 2003, 2005 and 2006[18]), the Champions League (1996), and the Intercontinental Cup (1996). His best season was in 1997-98, when he scored 21 goals in Serie A and finished top scorer in the Champions League with 10 goals, which included a peach of a freekick against Monaco in the semi finals.

Del Piero struggled for form at the beginning of the 1998-99 season, whilst doping allegations were aimed at Juventus (they were later found innocent). In October he picked up a serious knee injury in the 2-2 draw with Udinese Calcio. This kept him out of action for the remainder of the season. Juventus struggled without him and limped home to a lowly 6th place in the league.

His nickname is Pinturicchio, in reference to a joke by Gianni Agnelli when he compared the emerging Del Piero to Baggio in a parallel between the student Pinturicchio from Perugia and the teacher Perugino. He's also been nicknamed by the fans "Il Fenomeno Vero"[19] meaning "The Real Phenomenon".

A commemorative shirt, celebrating Del Piero's 500th Juventus appearance

One of Del Piero's greatest strengths as a footballer is his versatility, which allows him to play in a variety of attacking positions. While he started his club career playing as a full-fledged striker, he settled into a deeper role as a support-striker. Because of his great technical ability, accurate passing skills and impressive vision, he has also been positioned as a playmaker in the central slot behind the forwards. In any zone surrounding the penalty area, his prowess as a creator of goals came to the fore. Under Marcello Lippi's reign as Juventus coach, Del Piero's creative abilities were on display whatever the coach's formation was. Del Piero showed his class in the lethal "trident-attack" formation along with veterans Gianluca Vialli and Fabrizio Ravanelli. After that, he took a leading role in a creative combination with Zinedine Zidane behind Filippo Inzaghi. As Juve's playing style changed in Lippi's second stint with Juventus starting 2001, Del Piero was still vital as his partnerships with Pavel Nedvěd in midfield and David Trezeguet upfront has contributed enormously to Juve's continued success in Italy and Europe.

Del Piero is currently the all-time top scorer for Juventus scoring 241 goals, in all competitions he has also made over 557 appearances in official matches for the club breaking the record of Gaetano Scirea who has 552 appearances for Juventus. Alessandro is still Juventus' main strike force with Trezeguet and newly bought from Udinese in the summer Vincenzo Iaquinta.

On May 17th, 2008, against Sampdoria in the final round of the season, Del Piero at last clinched his first Serie A golden boot by scoring his 20th and 21st.

International career

Despite huge success on the club level, he has been somewhat disappointing playing for Italy, although he is currently the team's fourth all-time leading scorer. His tournament debut was Euro 96, but made his only appearance in the first half of a match against Russia before being substituted at halftime. Del Piero competed with fan favorite Baggio for a spot on the 1998 FIFA World Cup final roster while struggling to recover from injury suffered during the 1998 Champions League final with Juventus. He also missed two chances in Italy's 2-1 loss to France in the Euro 2000 final.

He returned to the international scene in the 2002 FIFA World Cup on the back of an impressive season in Serie A, in which he led Juventus to the Scudetto.[20] Del Piero scored the decisive goal against Hungary, which sealed the Azzurri's qualification for the finals.[21] He instantly scored against Mexico after coming on as a substitute to send Italy through to the second round, where they were eliminated.[22] After Euro 2004, Marcello Lippi was replaced by Fabio Capello as Juventus coach. Capello was not convinced of Del Piero's abilities and frequently benched him in favor of new signing Zlatan Ibrahimović, but Del Piero still managed to score 14 goals as Juventus won their 28th league title.

Del Piero began the 2006 World Cup on the bench, appearing in two out of three group stage matches, and made his first start of the competition in a 1-0 round-of-16 win over Australia on June 26. On July 4, Del Piero entered as a substitute near the end of regulation and scored Italy's second goal in a 2-0 semifinal win over host Germany. The final whistle blew 8 seconds after he scored.[23] In the final against France, which ended 1-1 after extra time, Del Piero scored a penalty in the shootout as Italy won the tournament for the fourth time. He admitted afterwards that winning the World Cup was his childhood dream.[24]

As of 2006, Del Piero has captained Italy five times (including the world cup in 2006) . He also regularly wore the number 10, but later gave it to Francesco Totti and switched to the number 7, as it was the first number he wore at the start of his career. Even though the number 10 was vacated after Totti retired from the national team in July 2007, Del Piero denied any interest in taking back the number, saying he was satisfied with the number 7. [25]

Del Piero was called up to Italy's squad for the UEFA Euro 2008 Championship in Austria and Switzerland. Italy qualified through the group stage in second-place behind Holland, eliminating Romania and France. In the quarter-final against Spain, Del Piero made a substitute appearance during extra-time, and with the game ending in a 0-0 draw, it was decided by a penalty shootout. Spain won 4-2. [26]

2006-07 season and onwards

Experts agree that Del Piero was back to his best in the 2005-06 season[27] having scored 20 goals in all competitions. His most memorable goal this season was the free kick which won the match against bitter rivals Internazionale. However, his role at Juventus changed in the following season, as coach Fabio Capello preferred to use him as a substitute for an "immediate impact", as Capello put it.[28] In 2006 Del Piero equalled José Altafini's Serie A record of 6 goals as a substitute after scoring in the final minute of Juventus's final game of the 2005-06 season. Del Piero himself is ambivalent about his ability to get goals off the bench, stating that "I want people to know me for more than being able to come off the bench to change a game", and in late March of 2006 revealed his openness to finishing his career with a club outside of Italy if it would guarantee him a place as a starting forward.

On January 10, 2006 Del Piero became the all time leading goalscorer for Juventus when he scored three times in a Coppa Italia match against Fiorentina and took his total goals for the club to 185. The previous record holder was Giampiero Boniperti, who scored 182 goals for the club.[29] Del Piero scored the last goal for Juventus in their latest Scudetto for the 05/06 Season.

Due to the Calciopoli scandal, Juventus were demoted to Serie B and their last two Scudetti were revoked. Del Piero announced that he will stay to captain the team in Serie B. He underlined that players should stick with the team, explaining that “The Agnelli family deserve this, as do the fans and the new directors".[30]

Del Piero's first appearance after the World Cup's triumph was in the Coppa Italia match against Cesena on August 23, 2006. Since Juventus will be playing in Serie B for the 2006-07 season, the Coppa Italia campaign became increasingly important for the club in order to achieve a Uefa Cup spot. Having being in vacation beforehand, Del Piero started from the bench. Juventus and Cesena were locked on 1-1 when Del Piero entered in the 74th minute and after 9 seconds scored the winning goal for Juventus.[31]

Del Piero then came in as a substitute at the 61st minute for Juve's next Coppa Italia match on August 27 vs. S.S.C. Napoli. Again Juventus was behind but Del Piero scored twice to give Juve the lead. In the end the match went into penalties, Del Piero scored a decisive one, but Napoli eventually won 5-4 in the shoot-out.[32]

This followed his signing of a new contract with Juventus after months of fractious negotiations with the club. This turnaround in fortunes for Del Piero was quite staggering, as only two weeks earlier, he was dropped by Claudio Ranieri for the Serie A match with ACF Fiorentina, and was then axed from Roberto Donadoni’s Italy squad for the games with Georgia and South Africa. However Alessandro has since turned his fortunes around and won a starting spot in the Juventus squad again. He scored two goals away at Lazio and was named to two consecutive Serie A teams of the week.

On the final weekend of the 2007/2008 season Del Piero scored a brace against Sampdoria in a 3-3 draw, he could have actually scored a hat trick but let striking partner David Trezeguet take a first half penalty - which Trezeguet converted. These two goals were crucial as it took him to 21 goals for the season thus winning the Capocannonieri in Serie A for the first time in his illustrious career, beating the likes of David Trezeguet (20 goals) and Marco Borriello (19 goals). Winning the Capocannoniere for the season 2007-08 enures that Alessandro becomes only the second Italian ever to win consecutive Capocannoniere titles in two different leagues - former Juventus and 1982 FIFA World Cup hero Paolo Rossi being the other one (coincidentally Rossi too won the Capocannoniere titles like Alessandro first in Serie B and then in Serie A). On July 26 2008, Del Piero was awarded the Scirea Award, with tallied votes far ahead of all competition, such as Christian Panucci and Vincenzo Montella.

During the 2008-2009 summer pre-season, Del Piero, like last term, impressed greatly and is in very good form. He was one of the stand-out players durind Juventus' English tour, in which they played Hamburg SV and FC Arsenal in the Emirates Cup, and played a friendly versus Manchester United in Old Trafford. Juventus coach Claudio Ranieri believes Del Piero will have as good of a season,or an even better season than last term. In August 2008, Del Piero announced that he'll try to keep playing proffesional football with Juve until he is 40 years old.

Personal life

Del Piero is married to Sonia Amoruso, the two have been together since 1999 and married in 2005.[33] The couple announced in July 2007 that they are expecting their first baby.[33] On October 22, 2007, Amoruso gave birth to baby boy Tobias Del Piero at 0:20 at Sant'Anna hospital in Turin.[34][35]

Del Piero has used his fame and money to promote and support cancer research; in recognition of this he has received from the Associazione Italiana per la Ricerca sul Cancro a prize of "Believe in Research" during November 2006.[36]

When the Olympic Flame for the 2006 Winter Olympics passed through Turin, Del Piero was a torchbearer.[37] He has an interest in sports outside of football and in turn has gained fans outside of just football, sport icons such as NBA star Steve Nash and cycling legend Eddy Merckx have stated that they are fans of Del Piero.[38][39]

As well as an interest in other sports, Del Piero also has a keen interest in music. He has even recorded some albums of his own.[40] Del Piero is an Oasis fan and is a friend of Noel Gallagher and appeared in the video for the group's single Lord Don't Slow Me Down; Del Piero claimed Gallagher was Italy's lucky mascot in their 2006 World Cup success and invited him to the final and the team hotel after victory.[41] Along with Marco Materazzi, Del Piero appeared on stage at a Rolling Stones show in Milan shortly after Italy's World Cup win.[42]

Honours

Juventus

  • Winner (4): 1995, 1997, 2002, 2003
  • Runner-up (2): 1998, 2005

International

Personal

  • MVP of the Intercontinental Final Award 1996

Career stats

Here is a comprehensive collection of statistics that map Del Piero's entire career of official (non friendly) club games.[43] Domestic Games includes league and cup. International cups covers club European games and other non Italian competitions.

  • Correct as of May 18, 2008.

Template:Football player statistics 1 Template:Football player statistics 2 |- |1991-92||rowspan="2"|Padova||rowspan="2"|Serie B||4||0||colspan="2"|-||colspan="2"|-||4||0 |- |1992-93||10||1||colspan="2"|-||colspan="2"|-||10||1 |- |1993-94||rowspan="15"|Juventus||rowspan="13"|Serie A||11||5||1||0||2||0||14||5 |- |1994-95||29||8||10||1||11||1||50||10 |- |1995-96||29||6||3||1||11||6||43||13 |- |1996-97||22||8||4||0||8||6||34||14 |- |1997-98||32||21||5||1||10||10||47||32 |- |1998-99||8||2||2||1||4||0||14||3 |- |1999-00||34||9||2||1||9||2||45||12 |- |2000-01||25||9||2||0||6||0||33||9 |- |2001-02||32||16||4||1||10||4||46||21 |- |2002-03||24||16||1||2||13||5||38||23 |- |2003-04||22||8||5||3||4||3||31||14 |- |2004-05||30||14||1||0||10||3||41||17 |- |2005-06||33||12||5||5||7||3||45||20 |- |2006-07||Serie B||35||20||2||3||colspan="2"|-||37||23 |- |2007-08||Serie A||37||21||4||3||colspan="2"|-||41||24 Template:Football player statistics 3417||176||51||22||105||43||574||242 Template:Football player statistics 5417||176||51||22||105||43||574||242 |}

References

  1. ^ "Alessandro Del Piero Player Page". Sports Illustrated. 2006. Retrieved 2007-10-03.
  2. ^ FIFA.com
  3. ^ AscotSportal.com
  4. ^ FindArticles.com
  5. ^ Channel 4 - France Football's top earners in the world, 8 April 2008
  6. ^ Juventus.com
  7. ^ Juventus.com
  8. ^ Channel4.com
  9. ^ Hnduonnet.com
  10. ^ WorldCup265.com
  11. ^ Calcio Italia 150 issue, Calcio Icons, Del Piero
  12. ^ PeopleDaily.com
  13. ^ Futbol.org
  14. ^ RaiSport.it
  15. ^ Buzzle.com
  16. ^ Kicker.de
  17. ^ ItBiografie.com
  18. ^ 2005 and 2006 Scudetti were revoked due to the Calciopoli Scandal
  19. ^ Kom.it
  20. ^ FindArticles.com
  21. ^ FIGC.it
  22. ^ FindArticles.com
  23. ^ "Youtube.com"
  24. ^ SkySports.com
  25. ^ Goal.com
  26. ^ Spain 0-0 Italy (4-2 penalties)
  27. ^ FindArticles.com
  28. ^ IHT.com
  29. ^ FindArticles.com
  30. ^ Channel4.com
  31. ^ Juventus.com
  32. ^ Juventus.com
  33. ^ a b Gazzetta.it
  34. ^ Del Piero, giorni d'oro E' nato il figlio Tobias - Gazzetta dello Sport
  35. ^ http://www.juventus.com/uk/news/detail.aspx?lml_language_id=0&trs_id=1370000&ID=12566
  36. ^ "Premio Credere nella Ricerca"
  37. ^ Juventus.com
  38. ^ FIFA World Cup @ Yahoo.com
  39. ^ Juventus Football
  40. ^ InternetBookShop.it
  41. ^ FIFA World Cup @ Yahoo.com
  42. ^ NME.com
  43. ^ Juventus.com
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Preceded by Italian Footballer of the Year
1998 		Succeeded by
Preceded by Serie A Capocannoniere
2007-08 		Succeeded by
Incumbent
Sporting positions
Preceded by Juventus captain
2004- 		Succeeded by
Incumbent


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