Alessandro del Piero Biography

Alessandro Del Piero (born November 9, 1974 in Conegliano) is an Italian football player. He usually plays as a support-striker and occasionally between the midfield and the strikers (in the hole), known in Italy as the "Trequartista" position. He is not the tallest of forwards, but is certainly one of the most creative forwards in the world, rather than being a "goal poacher".
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Del Piero is renowned for his deadly finishing, and the ease in which he dribbles past defenders. He is an expert in dead-ball situations as he is among the world's best in taking freekicks and penalty kicks. While he can hit the target from almost anywhere on the pitch, he is most famous for inside-curlring, dipping shot that he takes in the area that is up to 10 yards outside the penalty box, which is known as "La Zona Del Piero" meaning "The Del Piero Zone."

Del Piero started his professional career in 1991 with Padova of Italian Serie B. In 1993, he transferred to Juventus, and has been there ever since. With the Turin club, he won the Serie A championship seven times (1995, 1997, 1998, 2002, 2003, 2005 and 2006), 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 UEFA 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 many doping allegations were wrongly aimed at him. In October he picked up a serious knee injury in the 2-2 draw with Udinese. 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 Serie A. Many people claim that Del Piero has never fully recovered from this injury, and therefore never quite fulfilled the potential he had shown at a very young age. His nickname is Pinturicchio, in reference to a joke by Gianni Agnelli when he belittled the emerging Del Piero to the master Roberto Baggio in a parallel between modest painter Pinturicchio from Perugia and the great Raphael.

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 more 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 Nedved in midfield and David Trezeguet upfront has contributed enormously to Juve's continued success in Italy and Europe.

Despite a great amount of success on the club level, Del Piero has somewhat disappointed playing for the Italian national team but did score an impressive 28 goals for the country. Coming into the 1998 World Cup with huge expectations, he competed with fan favorite Roberto Baggio for a spot, and had some troubles because of a recent injury he picked up during the Champions' League final whilst playing for Juventus. Two years later Del Piero became one of the culprits for Italy's last minute loss in Euro 2000 final, missing 2 pretty good chances, which would have killed France off. However, he returned to the international scene in World Cup 2002 on the back of a very impressive season in Serie A, in which he led Juventus to the title, but the Italian fans didn't want him to play in place of Roberto Baggio, who was at the end of his career. For this the Italian fans shouted "Baggio in nazionale, Del Piero a lavorare!" ('Baggio in the national team, Del Piero to work!'). Despite of this he scored a goal against Mexico with his first touch of the game seconds within coming on as a substitute to send Italy through to the second round, but they would get no further. Even if Del Piero was one of Italy's best players in the tournament he was never really given the chance that he deserved. This was shown in the second round match against South Korea where Del Piero was substituted by the defensive minded coach, Giovanni Trapattoni. He then had another terrific season as he led Juventus to another Championship and to the Final of the UEFA Champions League. Del Piero then played for the Italian national team at Euro 2004. He had some brilliant moments there but the tournament didn't go well for Italy.

After Euro 2004, Del Piero faced another tough moment after Juventus replaced their Coach Marcello Lippi with Fabio Capello. Capello was not convinced of Del Piero's abilities and favoured the new signing from Ajax, Zlatan Ibrahimovic. However The Juve captain, fought back and scored 14 goals in Serie A that season, helping Juventus to their 28th Scudetto. Most memorable perhaps was his amazing bicycle-kick assist against AC Milan which sealed the Scudetto for Juventus.

Experts agree that Del Piero is back to his best in the 2005-2006 season having already scored 19 goals in all competitions as of April, 2006. Most memorable goal in this season has been the magical freekick which won the match vs bitter rivals Internazionale. However, his role at Juventus has changed this season as coach Capello prefers using him as a substitute for an 'immediate impact', as Capello puts it [1]. In 2006 Del Piero equalled Jos� Altafini's Serie A record of 6 goals as a substitute after scoring in the final minute of Juventus's final game of the 2005-2006 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. As of May 2006, Del Piero has 194 goals for Juventus in official matches and has scored the last goal for Juventus in their latest Scudetto for the 05/06 Season.

ALESSANDRO DEL PIERO PICTURES

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ALESSANDRO DEL PIERO BIOGRAPHY