Height: 1.75m.
Weight: 74.00kg.
Nationality: Italy
Born: 09/11/1974 in Conegliano
First professional match: Foggia - Juventus : 1-1 on 12/09/1993
Alessandro Del Piero, Cavaliere Ufficiale OMRI[2][3] (born November 9, 1974 in Conegliano, Veneto) is an Italian World Cup-winning footballer who plays for Serie A club Juventus.
Del Piero was named in the FIFA 100, a list of the 125 greatest living footballers selected by Pel? as a part of FIFA's centenary celebrations. Brazilian star Ronaldinho proclaimed that Del Piero is his idol. 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. Currently, Del Piero is still the highest earning Italian Player.
Along with three awards in Italy for gentlemanly conduct he has also won the Golden Foot award, which pertains to personality and playing ability.
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." His free-kick and penalty taking is also highly regarded. 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.
In terms of goalscoring, Del Piero holds the all-time record at Juventus. 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. Within the Italian national team, he is currently joint fourth with Roberto Baggio in the all-time scoring records.
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.[16] 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.
While playing for the local youth team of San Vendemiano since the age of 7, 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.
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.
Del Piero is currently Italy'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 gilt-edged chances in Italy's 2-1 loss to France in theEuro 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. Del Piero scored the decisive goal against Hungary, which sealed the Azzurri's qualification for the finals. He instantly scored with a header against Mexico after coming on as a substitute, a goal which saved Italy from the ignominy of a first round exit. The goal sent Italy through to the second round, where they were eliminated due to a golden goal in a controversial match against S. Korea.
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. 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. 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. He was mostly on the substitutes' bench but started against Romania as the squad's captain. In the group match against the Dutch, he came on for the under-performing Antonio Di Natale and made an immediate impact, including several efforts on goal. However he could not prevent the Azzurifrom a 3-0 loss. 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 in which Spain won 4-2. On 20 August 2008 he won his 90th cap for Italy in friendly against Austria - only the fifth Azzurri player to reach this landmark. Despite announcing that he will carry on playing until he is 40 years old, he has not been called up since Italy's qualifier against Georgia on September 10, 2008.
The semifinal between Germany and Italy produced an entertaining extra time period that went scoreless until the 118th minute, when Italy scored twice through Fabio Grosso and Alessandro Del Piero, putting an end to Germany's undefeated record in Dortmund, and continued their dominance over Die Nationalelf.
Del Piero is married to Sonia Amoruso the sister of Nicola Amoruso is an Italian football player who plays as a striker for Serie A side Atalanta B.C. and the two have been together since 1999 and married in 2005. The couple announced in July 2007 that they are expecting their first baby. On 22 October 2007, Amoruso gave birth to baby boy Tobias Del Piero at 0:20 at Sant'Anna hospital inTurin. On February 14, 2008, Amoruso's second pregnancy was announced. On May 4, 2009 their daughter Dorotea was born in Turin.
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.
When the Olympic Flame for the 2006 Winter Olympics passed through Turin, Del Piero was a torchbearer. 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.
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. Along with Marco Materazzi, Del Piero appeared on stage at a Rolling Stones show in Milan shortly after Italy's World Cup win.
On 9 February 2009, it was reported that Del Piero was suing the social networking site Facebook over a fake profile bearing his name that links to Nazi propaganda 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.
Besides scoring goals, Del Piero is also known for his sense of humour. His goal celebration usually consists of him running to the touchline in front of Juve fans sticking his tongue out. He featured in the show La sai l'ultima di Totti, a comedy sketch created by his good friend and Roma captain Francesco Totti where the two of them and national teammates Milan defender Alessandro Nesta and Juve teammate Gianluigi Buffon would tell jokes about one another.
On TV, Del Piero is famous not just for his matches, but also for broadcasting and advertising skills. He is under contract with German sports equipment manufacturer Adidas, Italian car manufacturer Fiatand Japanese motorbike company Suzuki. In 2006 he appeared in a television commercial for the Japanese motor scooter Suzuki Burgman together with the sports agent Andreas Goller.
Del Piero was also featured on the cover of EA Sports' FIFA Football 2004 video game, alongside Thierry Henry and Ronaldinho. It has been confirmed that he will be one of the two stars featured on the cover of the Italian version of PES 2010 video game, the other being Barcelona FC and Argentina star Lionel Messi.
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