Cesare Prandelli
Claudio Cesare Prandelli ( born August 19, 1957 in Orzinuovi ) is a retired Italian footballer and current coach. He is currently in charge of the Italian national soccer team.
- 3.1 As a player
- 3.2 As a coach
- 4.1 External links
- 4.2 Notes and references
Career
As a player
Prandelli started his playing career with the season 1974/75 at the Italian club U.S. Cremonese, where he spent four seasons in the third and second Italian league. After a one year stint at Atalanta Bergamo in the 1978/79 season he moved to Juventus, where he spent the most successful period of his career between 1979 and 1985. With Juve he won three Italian championships, one Italian Cup, one Champions Cup, a Cup Winners' Cup, one European Super Cup and a World Cup. In the summer of 1985 he returned to Bergamo, where he still played until the 1989/90 season.
As a coach
After his playing career Prandelli first worked as a youth coach at Atalanta, where he succeeded in 1993 to win the Torneo di Viareggio, an international competition for youth teams. He was still a youth coach at Atalanta to 1997 and then moved into the professional business.
His first season with U.S. Lecce was still not happy, but even at his next club, Hellas Verona, he was successful and was promoted to the Serie A. Even with the team of Venezia him immediate promotion to the Serie A. Two years of success with FC Parma, where he reached the 5th place in Serie A twice in a row, finally established him among the Italian success coaches. After a brief stint at Roma, he had to cancel due to family problems, he coached five years Fiorentina.
Prandelli was able to form a powerful team from Florence. His greatest successes at Fiorentina were the two fourth places in the seasons 2007/ 08 and 2008/ 09, the semi-finals of the UEFA Cup in 2007/ 08 as well as reaching the Champions League first knockout round 2009/10 after his side in the group stage against Olympique Lyon, Liverpool FC and Debreceni VSC won the first place. In January 2009, he was elected to Italy's coach of the year 2008.
After the World Cup 2010, he became the new Italy coach Marcello Lippi as a successor. At Euro 2012 in Poland and Ukraine, the Squadra Azzurra was Vice-European Champion under him.
Others
Prandelli wrote a preface to a book that deals with homosexuality in sports. In it he condemns homophobia as a form of racism.
As a coach Prandelli punished inglorious behavior on the court with his ethics code. So he voluntarily surrendered on players who get out of unsportsmanlike reasons such as verbal abuse or assault a sending off or a lock.
Achievements
As a player
- Italian Champion: 1980/81, 1981/82, 1983/84
- Italian Cup Winners: 1982/83, 1983/84
- European Cup Winners' Cup: 1983/84
- European Champion Clubs' Cup: 1984/85
- European Supercup: 1985
As a coach
- Torneo di Viareggio: 1993
- Italian Serie B Championship: 1998/99
- Italy's Coach of the Year: 2008
- European runners-up: 2012
- Third in the Confederations Cup: 2013