Alessandro Del Piero

Alessandro Del Piero

Alessandro Del Piero (Italian pronunciation: [alesˈsandro del ˈpjɛːro]) Ufficiale OMRI(born 9 November 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 Pelé as a part of FIFA's centenary celebrations.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.

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"("Gol alla Del Piero"), approaching from the left flank and curling a precise lob into the far top corner of the goal.

Del Piero holds the all-time goalscoring record at Juventus.[On 6 April 2008, Alessandro Del Piero became the all-time highest-capped Juventus player, ahead of Juve legend Gaetano Scirea. As of May 2010, he is in eighth place in the UEFA Champions League all-time goalscorer records] and joint fourth with Roberto Baggio within the Italian national team 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 two friends, Nelso and Pierpaolo as a child. All three dreamed of becoming footballers, but only Del Piero would eventually manage to do so.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 did not 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 would not 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.

Personal life

Del Piero is married to Sonia Amoruso, and the two have been together since 1999 and married in 2005. The couple announced in July 2007 that they were expecting their first baby. On 22 October 2007, Amoruso gave birth to baby boy Tobias Del Piero at 0:20 at Sant'Anna hospital in Turin. On 14 February 2009, Amoruso's second pregnancy was announced.On 5 May 2009 their daughter Dorotea was born in Turin.[46] On September, 12, 2010 Del Piero announced on his personal website the upcoming birth of his third child. The Del Pieros welcomed son Sasha on December, 27th of that year.

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. He is a good friend of musician and singer Noel Gallagher and a fan of his former band Oasis. Del Piero appears in the Oasis video "Lord Don't Slow Me Down".

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 as he did not have a Facebook profile at that time.

Besides scoring goals, Del Piero is also known for his sense of humour and is a popular guest at Italian comedy shows such as Paperissima and Striscia la notizia. His goal celebration usually consists of him running to the touchline in front of Juve fans sticking his tongue out and has done the back-flip goal celebration on several occasions. 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,with Uliveto water, Italian car manufacturer Fiat and 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. He was 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.