Cesare Prandelli, the manager of the Italy national football team

Cesare Claudio Prandelli (born 19 August 1957 in Orzinuovi, province of Brescia) is an Italian football coach and former player. He is currently the manager of the Italy national football team.

Prandelli, a midfielder, started his playing career at Cremonese in 1974. He then moved to Atalanta in 1978, and then Juventus in 1979. He played six seasons with Juventus, winning the Serie A championship three times. He returned to Atalanta in 1985, where he ended his career in 1990. In total, Prandelli played 197 Serie A matches.

Prandelli started his managing career as youth team coach for Atalanta. He coached Atalanta's youth squad with excellent results from 1990 to 1997, except for a seven-months parenthesis, from November 1993 to June 1994, in which he served as caretaker for the first team, then relegated to Serie B. After a poor 1997–98 Serie A campaign as Lecce head coach ended in a sacking in January 1998, Prandelli headed Hellas Verona for two seasons, leading the gialloblu to an immediate promotion to Serie A, and then to a very good ninth place the next year. He later spent two years with Parma, where he fully reached national glory.

Starting the 2004–05 season for AS Roma, he left the team because of personal problems involving his wife, with her being seriously ill.

Prandelli joined Fiorentina as manager in the summer of 2005. His first season in Tuscany proved to be a huge success, as Prandelli transformed Fiorentina from relegation strugglers into a team worthy of a UEFA Champions League spot, finishing the season in fourth place. Unfortunately for Fiorentina and Prandelli however, as a result of the Calciopoli match-fixing scandal, Fiorentina were stripped of their Champions League spot and started the 2006–07 season in Serie A with a 15 point deduction.

The next year, despite the points deduction, Prandelli was able to guide Fiorentina to a 6th place finish in Serie A (with the same point tally as 5th placed Palermo), securing UEFA Cup qualification for the 2007–08 season. The team did very well in the competition, losing the penalty shootout against Rangers in the semi-final. In Serie A, the team finished fourth after winning a long race against Milan, earning a ticket to participate in the UEFA Champions League. His wife died during the season, making Prandelli's efforts all the more impressive.

For his work in the 2007–08 season, Prandelli was awarded the Serie A Coach of the Year at the "Oscar del calcio" awards in early 2009. He later managed to get Fiorentina into the group phase, after defeating SK Slavia Praha in the third qualifying round, and also guided Fiorentina to another fourth place spot, this time winning competition to Genoa (who ended the season with the same points as Fiorentina, but were classified at fifth due to head-to-head results) and a second consecutive participation in the UEFA Champions League qualifying rounds. After the departure of Carlo Ancelotti, Prandelli's tenure as Fiorentina became the longest of all incumbent Serie A managers.

In 2009, Prandelli surpassed Fulvio Bernardini as the longest serving manager in Fiorentina history, and guided the viola to a historic qualification in the round of 16 of the 2009–10 UEFA Champions League, where they were controversially eliminated by Bayern Munich (who later went on to qualify to the final) through the away goals rule. However, Prandelli did not manage to repeat such successes at the domestic stage, with things being made even more complex by his key player Adrian Mutu being suspended due to doping-related issues. Fiorentina ended the 2009–10 Serie A in eleventh place, well far from the top spots of the league.

On 20 May 2010 Fiorentina confirmed that Prandelli was given permission to hold talks with Italian Football Federation president Giancarlo Abete to replace Marcello Lippi as head coach of the Italian national team after the 2010 FIFA World Cup. On 30 May, the Italian Football Federation publicly announced that Prandelli will take over from Lippi at the head of the Azzurri after the 2010 FIFA World Cup.His official debut arrived on 10 August 2010, in a friendly match against Ivory Coast at the Boleyn Ground, finishing in a 0–1 defeat.

Then, during the 2012 Euro Qualifiers, Italy came back from behind to defeat Estonia 2-1. Italy's mtach against Serbia was plagued by crowd trouble and UEFA subsequently awarded Italy a 3-0 victory, putting them in pole position of their group. On March 25. 2011, Italy recorded a 1-0 win over Slovenia to secure their spot at the top of the qualification table. Before the Slovenia game, Prandelli said: “The moment has come for us to have faith in the former greats of our football and learn from them”. “My instruction is to work, work, work and I sincerely believe in rebuilding" he continued. “I don’t think it’s incredible the huge number of talents that Slovenia are producing, nothing is incredible if you program and cultivate your ideas about football."

Oldies but goldies: Walter Zenga, Uomo Ragno. Spider-Man-ul lui Inter

Walter Zenga este un fotbalist italian retras din activitate, care a jucat mult timp ca portar la Inter Milano și în echipa națională a Italiei.

Walter Zenga este un fotbalist italian retras din activitate, care a jucat mult timp ca portar la Inter Milano și în echipa națională a Italiei. A fost de asemenea membru al naționalei italiene care a terminat pe locul 4 la Olimpiada din 1984 (Los Angeles, California) și al reprezentativei care a terminat pe locul 3 Cupa Mondială din 1990, Zenga fiind titular în toate partidele.

Walter Zenga is a retired Italian footballer and current manager. He is a long-time goalkeeper for the Italian national team and Internazionale, who currently serves as head coach of UAE League team Al-Nasr.


During his playing career, Zenga was part of the Italian squad that finished fourth at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, USA and the World Cup squad that finished third in the 1990 World Cup tournament held in Italy, in which Zenga started every game for the Azzurri.


Came back to Internazionale in 1982, after starting his professional career in 1978 in the lower divisions of Italian soccer (his first team was Salernitana in Serie C1, and he also played for Savona and Sambenedettese). Zenga became Inter's starter in his second year with the team, and continued in that position for 11 seasons, until 1994, winning a scudetto in the 1988–89 season and the UEFA Cup in 1991 and 1994, his last season with the club. After being one of the backup goalkeepers (third choice) at the 1986 World Cup, Zenga became the starter when during the Euro 1988. Zenga was still first choice goalkeeper when Italy hosted the tournament in 1990, and led the team to a third-place finish during which he set a record of five consecutive clean sheets, and a total of 518 minutes without conceding a goal, a record still standing. The record was somewhat fortunate, as Czechoslovakia scored against Italy in a first round match, only for the referee to incorrectly disallow it for offside. He finished his international career with 58 caps for his country.


In 1994, Zenga transferred to Sampdoria, and then to Padova two years later. He then moved on to New England Revolution and Major League Soccer. Zenga played in goal for them in the league's second season in 1997, then left to pursue an acting career (he and his girlfriend starred in an Italian soap opera). During a game versus the Tampa Bay Mutiny in 1997, he celebrated a goal by running to the sidelines and making out with his girlfriend, as the Mutiny barely missed the open net straight from the kickoff. Zenga came back to the Revs in 1999, as a player-manager, but only lasted a year in both those positions.

During his playing career, Zenga was nicknamed Uomo Ragno (Spider-Man) due to his goalkeeping skills, especially his agility.

Fabio Capello. Un italian, dirijor în Perfidul Albion

Fabio Capello is a retired Italian footballer and current manager of the England national football team, having started the role in January 2008.

Capello has the distinction of winning the domestic league title with every club he has coached throughout his career. In his first five seasons as a manager he won four Serie A titles with Milan, where he also won the 1993–94 UEFA Champions League, defeating Barcelona 4–0 in a memorable final. He then spent a year at Real Madrid, where he won the La Liga title at his first attempt, and in 2001 led Roma to their first league title in 18 years. Capello also won two titles at Juventus (which were later stripped after the Calciopoli scandal), and in 2006 returned to Real Madrid, where he won another La Liga title. Overall he has won a major league championship in seven (or nine, counting the two revoked titles with Juventus) of his 16 seasons as a coach, and is one of the few managers to claim championship victories in four major European cities: Milan, Madrid, Rome, and Turin.

After being appointed England manager in December 2007, Capello announced that the role would be the last of his career. Capello's contract with the Football Association came into effect on 7 January 2008, and was initially planned to run for two-and-a-half years; on 24 January 2008, Capello was named president of the League Managers Association, a customary role given to the English national coach. In May 2010 it was announced that Capello's contract had been extended in to 2012.

Honours:
As a player

Roma

* Coppa Italia (1): 1968–69

Juventus

* Serie A (3): 1971–72, 1972–73, 1974–75

Milan

* Serie A (1): 1978–79
* Coppa Italia (1): 1976–77

[edit] As a coach

Milan

* Serie A (4): 1991–92, 1992–93, 1993–94, 1995–96
* Supercoppa Italiana (3): 1992, 1993, 1994
* UEFA Champions League (1): 1993–94
* European Super Cup (1): 1994
* Coppa Italia Primavera (1): 1984–85

Roma

* Serie A (1): 2000–01
* Supercoppa Italiana (1): 2001

Juventus

* Serie A (1): 2004–05, 2005–06 (both revoked)

Real Madrid

* La Liga (2): 1996–97, 2006–07

[edit] Individual

* Serie A Coach of the Year: 2005
* BBC Sports Personality of the Year Coach Award: 2009