[[Image:DelPiero500.PNG|thumb|200px|right|A commemorative shirt, celebrating Del Piero's 500th Juventus appearance]]
[[Image:DelPiero500.PNG|thumb|200px|right|A commemorative shirt, celebrating Del Piero's 500th Juventus appearance]]
'''Alessandro Del Piero''', [[Italian orders of merit|Cavaliere Ufficiale OMRI]]<ref>[http://www.fifa.com/en/organisation/president/index/0,4095,129202,00.html?articleid=129202 FIFA.com]</ref><ref>[http://www.ascotsportal.com/news/newsdtl.aspx?PID=89262e2c-3beb-4080-bd5e-949f498ecbcc&CID=4ca0fc99-f8bf-4260-b379-ee5bca3085eb&NID=e47baa4d-fe98-4feb-a0ff-a007b8e62e87 AscotSportal.com]</ref> (born November 9, 1974 in [[Conegliano|Conegliano Veneto]]) is an [[Italians|Italian]] [[FIFA World Cup|World Cup]]-winning [[Association football|footballer]]. He currently plays for [[Juventus F.C.|Juventus]] in [[Italy]].
'''Alessandro Del Piero''', [[Italian orders of merit|Cavaliere Ufficiale OMRI]]<ref>[http://www.fifa.com/en/organisation/president/index/0,4095,129202,00.html?articleid=129202 FIFA.com]</ref><ref>[http://www.ascotsportal.com/news/newsdtl.aspx?PID=89262e2c-3beb-4080-bd5e-949f498ecbcc&CID=4ca0fc99-f8bf-4260-b379-ee5bca3085eb&NID=e47baa4d-fe98-4feb-a0ff-a007b8e62e87 AscotSportal.com]</ref> (born November 9, 1974 in [[Conegliano|Conegliano Veneto]]) is an [[Italians|Italian]] [[FIFA World Cup|World Cup]]-winning [[Association football|footballer]]. He currently plays for [[Juventus F.C.|Juventus]] in [[Italy]]. His best friend is Evan MacKinnon.
Del Piero was named in the [[FIFA 100]], a list of the 125 greatest living footballers selected by [[Pelé]] as a part of [[FIFA]]'s centenary celebrations while Brazilian star [[Ronaldinho]] proclaimed that Del Piero is his idol.<ref>[http://www.channel4.com/sport/football_italia/nov28n.html Channel4, Nov. 28, 2008]</ref> Del Piero 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.<ref>[http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4158/is_20000426/ai_n14306883 FindArticles.com]</ref> Currently, Del Piero is still the highest earning Italian Player.<ref>[http://www.channel4.com/sport/football_italia/apr8g.html Channel 4 - France Football's top earners in the world, 8 April 2008]</ref>
Del Piero was named in the [[FIFA 100]], a list of the 125 greatest living footballers selected by [[Pelé]] as a part of [[FIFA]]'s centenary celebrations while Brazilian star [[Ronaldinho]] proclaimed that Del Piero is his idol.<ref>[http://www.channel4.com/sport/football_italia/nov28n.html Channel4, Nov. 28, 2008]</ref> Del Piero 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.<ref>[http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4158/is_20000426/ai_n14306883 FindArticles.com]</ref> Currently, Del Piero is still the highest earning Italian Player.<ref>[http://www.channel4.com/sport/football_italia/apr8g.html Channel 4 - France Football's top earners in the world, 8 April 2008]</ref>
A commemorative shirt, celebrating Del Piero's 500th Juventus appearance
Alessandro Del Piero, Cavaliere Ufficiale OMRI[2][3] (born November 9, 1974 in Conegliano Veneto) is an ItalianWorld Cup-winning footballer. He currently plays for Juventus in Italy. His best friend is Evan MacKinnon.
Del Piero was named in the FIFA 100, a list of the 125 greatest living footballers selected by Pelé as a part of FIFA's centenary celebrations while Brazilian star Ronaldinho proclaimed that Del Piero is his idol.[4] Del Piero 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.[5] Currently, Del Piero is still the highest earning Italian Player.[6]
Along with three awards in Italy for gentlemanly conduct[7][8] he has also won the Golden Foot award, which pertains to personality and playing ability.[9]
Del Piero usually 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."[10] His free-kick and penalty taking is also highly regarded.[11]
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.[12]
In terms of goalscoring, Del Piero holds the all-time record at Juventus.[13] On April 6, 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.[14] 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.[15]
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.[16]
While playing for the local youth team of San Vendemiano from the age of 7,[17] 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.[18]
It was while playing with his local side of 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, 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[19]), 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. 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"[20] meaning "The Real Phenomenon", in a sort of comparison with Ronaldo, who was nicknamed "Il Fenomeno" by rival supporters of Internazionale.
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. He has also been positioned as a playmaker in the central slot behind the forwards. Under Marcello Lippi's reign as Juventus coach Del Piero played in the "trident-attack" formation along with veterans Gianluca Vialli and Fabrizio Ravanelli. After that, he took a role in a combination with Zinédine Zidane behind Filippo Inzaghi. As Juve's playing style changed in Lippi's second stint with Juventus starting 2001, Del Piero partnered with Zidane's replacement Pavel Nedvěd in midfield and David Trézéguet upfront.
Del Piero is currently the all-time top scorer for Juventus scoring 254 goals, in all competitions he has also made over 580 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.
On May 17, 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.
On October 21, 2008, he scored in Juve's Champions League match at home against Real Madrid. In the 5th minute, he knicked in the ball giving Casillas no chance, with Amauri scoring the second in the first few minutes of the second half.
In the return fixture on November 5, he scored two goals, the latter of which was a sublimetrademark free-kick, which looped over the heads of the crumbling wall-of-defenders to nestle in the corner of Iker Casillas' goal. In this occasion the Real Madrid's fan granted to Del Piero a standing ovation for his performance. This fine display put Juventus through to the next round of the UEFA Champions League with 10 Points, and leave Real Madrid fighting it out with Zenit St. Petersburg and BATE Borisov for the final qualifying spot.
Del Piero scored his 250th goal for Juventus during a match against Reggina on November 29, 2008.
Del Piero 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 Roberto 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, after a season in Serie A in which Juventus won the Scudetto.[21] Del Piero scored the decisive goal against Hungary, which sealed the Azzurri's qualification for the finals.[22] He instantly scored against Mexico after coming on as a substitute to send Italy through to the second round, where they were eliminated.[23] 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 thanks to his spectacular overhead assist to teammate David Trezeguet which proved decisive in a crunch match against AC Milan at San Siro.
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.[24] 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.[25]
As of 2008, Del Piero has captained Italy seven times (including the world cup in 2006 and Euro 2008) . 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.
On May he was recalled by popular demand to Italy's UEFA Euro 2008 squad after nine-month absence from international duty, and thus became the second Italian player to participate in 7 major international tournaments (EURO 1996, 2000, 2004, 2008; World Cup 1998, 2002, 2006).
Del Piero was called up to Italy's squad for the UEFA Euro 2008 Championship in Austria and Switzerland. On June starts just one game at UEFA Euro 2008 as Italy go out in quarter-finals. 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]
On 20 August2008 wins 90th cap for Italy in friendly against Austria - only fifth Azzurri player to reach this landmark and after few days announces that he will carry on playing until he is 40 years old.
Due to his great ability and record number of appearances and goals he is referred to as "The Old Master" and "Il Padrino".
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. 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.
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 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 Del Piero has since regained a starting spot in the Juventus squad again. On February scores winning goal for Juventus in Serie A victory at home to AS Roma (1-0). He scored two goals away at Lazio and was named to two consecutive Serie A teams of the week. On 6 April2008 sets new Juventus appearance record, overtaking Gaetano Scirea's previous tally of 552 matches in all competitions.[33] On April registers seven goals in five Serie A matches, including hat-trick in 4-0 away win over Atalanta.
On the final weekend of the 2007/2008 season Del Piero scored a brace against Sampdoria in a 3-3 draw. 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) and matching his highest tally for a top-flight season since 1997/98.[34]
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.
During the 2008-2009 summer pre-season Del Piero played during Juventus' English tour, in which they played Hamburger SV and Arsenal F.C. 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 professional football with Juve until he is 40 years old.
September: marks return to UEFA Champions League action after two seasons away with
On September 17, 2008 Juventus returned to the Champions League after two seasons away and Alessandro marks with a brilliant winning free-kick goal, 38 metres away, against FC Zenit St. Petersburg in Turin (1-0).[35] On October 21, scores wonderful first-time strike from distance as Juve defeat Real Madrid CF in Turin.[36]
Again in the Champions League, he was the match winner for Juventus, on the 5th of November, he scored both goals at the Santiago Bernabéu against Real Madrid, becoming the first Juve player to have scored two more exquisite goals in the same match in this ground to secure team's qualification for last 16 of UEFA Champions League. Near the end of the match he was substituted and was given a standing ovation by the whole crowd including applauses off the field by Madrid fans.[37]
Personal life
Del Piero is married to Sonia Amoruso, the two have been together since 1999 and married in 2005.[38] The couple announced in July 2007 that they are expecting their first baby.[38] On October 22, 2007, Amoruso gave birth to baby boy Tobias Del Piero at 0:20 at Sant'Anna hospital in Turin.[39][40] On February 14, 2009, Amoruso's second pregnancy was announced.[41]
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.[42]
When the Olympic Flame for the 2006 Winter Olympics passed through Turin, Del Piero was a torchbearer.[43] He has an interest in sports outside of football (particularly basketball) 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.[44][45]
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.[46] Along with Marco Materazzi, Del Piero appeared on stage at a Rolling Stones show in Milan shortly after Italy's World Cup win.[47]
On 9 February 2009, it was reported that Del Piero was sueing the social networking site Facebook over a fake profile bearing his name that links to Nazipropaganda sites. He was said to be aggrieved that the bogus account, which carries his picture, implies neo-Nazi sympathies. Del Piero stated he's never had a Facebook profile.[48]
Italy
