Alessandro Del Piero (born November 9, 1974 in Conegliano) is an
Italian football player. He usually plays as a forward or
between the midfield and the strikers.
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 five times (1995, 1997, 1998, 2002, and 2003), the
Champions League (1996), and the Toyota Cup (1996). His best
season was in 1997-98, when he scored 21 goals in Serie A.
Despite a large amount of success on the club level, Del Piero
has experienced a lot of incosistency with the Italian national
team. Coming into the 1998 World Cup with huge expectations, he
competed with fan favorite Roberto Baggio for a spot, and had a
down tournament. Del Piero then became the scapegoat for Italy's
loss in Euro 2000 final, missing a clear-cut chance. He then
played in the 2002 World Cup, and finally did score his World
Cup goal, but Italy once again exited early. Despite his past
inconsistency, Del Piero was not half as bad as the rest of the
Italian national team at Euro 2004. But despite the relative
failure in major tournaments, Del Piero has been one of his
country's best players at the turn of the 21st century. As of
the end of 2004, he scored 24 goals in 67 caps for Italy. |
