Quick Facts
Biography
Corrado Grabbi (born 29 July 1975 in Turin) is a retired Italian football player who played as a forward. He was nicknamed "Ciccio" throughout his career.
Career
Early career
Grabbi began his career with the Juventus youth team. He was promoted to the first team and scored on his debut against Lazio, in one of his total two appearances in the 1994–95 season. Unable to break into the team, because of his young age and the contemporary explosion of Alessandro Del Piero, he was loaned to Lucchese (76 games, 8 goals) and then Chievo (18 games, 2 goals) before switching to Modena. There he found some real form, scoring 30 times in 58 appearances. This performance saw him signed by Ternana, where he played for one season before been loaned to Ravenna where he scored 13 goals. When he returned to Ternana he became a regular scorer again, with 20 goals in 34 games and became idol for the local supporters, who still remember him as the best player to ever have played for Ternana.
Premier League
Grabbi's prolific season with Ternana saw him attract attention of various Serie A clubs, including Udinese and AC Milan. But apparently Luciano Moggi of Juventus, who had previously pressured Grabbi to change his agent and join GEA World with no success, made it impossible for Ciccio to play in Italy, so in 2001 he was signed by Blackburn Rovers for a record fee of £6.75 million in July 2001, but due to injuries and personal reasons, he failed to repeat this progress, scoring just once in fourteen league games, his goal coming in a 1–0 win over Everton. He scored once more before going on loan to Messina, in the FA Cup against Barnsley. Leaving the club on loan meant he missed out on their victory in the 2002 League Cup Final. Grabbi's move to Blackburn is widely regarded as one of the worst transfers in the history of the Premier League. In an interview with an Italian TV Station, Grabbi stated that he was finding it hard to acclimatise himself to the British weather and game, and also said that he was finding it hard to fit in with the team.
In the same interview, Grabbi stated that the only person who he became friends with in this time was Tugay Kerimoğlu.
Despite his unsuccessful spell at Blackburn Rovers, Grabbi still has a cult following with fans of the club.
During a loan spell back in Italy with Messina, he scored 2 goals in the final game of the season and saved Messina from relegation. Upon his return to England, he failed to reignite his form, and after a further 16 games and three goals (against Liverpool in the league, CSKA Sofia in the UEFA Cup and Walsall in the League Cup) with Blackburn, who had meantime signed ex-Manchester United strikers Dwight Yorke and Andy Cole, he was allowed to return to Italy permanently with Ancona in 2004.
Later career
After spending 1 year without a team, trying to recover from the injury caused by a rare form of foot disease (Leveraus Morb) which had afflicted him for the past 3 seasons, he joined Genoa of Serie C1/A in September 2005. With his new team, he gained promotion to Serie B on playoffs scoring 9 goals in 25 games. Before the return playoff final, Grabbi announced he was considering retiring from football, because of his physical conditions, but later he declared he was persuaded to go on by the Genoa supporters and fellow players, as well as club president Enrico Preziosi. Preziosi though decided then that Genoa did not need Grabbi anymore, so during the 2007 winter transfer window, Grabbi signed for Arezzo, still in Serie B, after having never made a single appearance in the first half of the season for Genoa. After relegation with Arezzo, scoring no goals, Grabbi signed a contract with AC Bellinzona, a team from the Swiss Challenge League (second division). Ciccio scored the winning goal (his first after more than 1 year) in the Swiss Cup game Bellinzona-Gossau: 2–1 [1].
Grabbi was also directly involved in the Calciopoli scandal of summer 2006 as a victim: It was in fact only then that Ciccio could tell the media what Luciano Moggi had done to affect his career: after Ciccio Grabbi had refused to drop his Agent in favour of Luciano Moggi's son, Moggi told him "you will never play football again, if not in my garden!" Grabbi was propriety of Juventus until he was sold to Ternana.
Honours
Club
- Serie A: 1994–95
- Coppa Italia: 1994–95
- League Cup: 2001-02